4 


A  ncient  Classics  for  English  Readers 

EDITED  BY  THE 

REV.  W.  LUCAS  COLLINS,  M.A. 


HERODOTUS 


9  <>9  7 


CONTENTS  OF  THE  SERIES. 


HOMER  :  THE  ILIAD, 
HOMER:  THE  ODYSSEY, 
HERODOTUS, 

C^SAR,  , 

VIRGIL, 

HORACE, 

/ESCHYLUS,  By 
XENOPHON, 

CICERO, 

SOPHOCLES, 

PLINY.  By  A. 
EURIPIDES. 

JUVENAL,  . 
ARISTOPHANES, 


.  .  .  By  the  Editor. 

.  .  By  the  Same. 

.  .  By  George  C.  S  wayne,  M.A. 

...  By  Anthony  Trollope. 

. By  the  Editor. 

,  ,  .  .  By  Theodore  Martin, 

the  Right  Rev.  thb  Bishop  of  Colombo. 
.  By  Sir  Alex.  Grant,  Bart.,  LKD. 

. By  the  Editor. 

.  .  By  Clifton  W.  Collins,  M.A. 

Church,  M.A.,  and  W.  J.  Brodribb,  M.A. 

By  William  Bodham  Donne. 
By  Edward  Walford,  M.A, 

.  .  .  By  the  Editor. 

HESIOD  AND  THEOGNIS,  By  the  Rev.  James  Davies,  M.A. 
PLAUTUS  AND  TERENCE,  ...  By  the  Editor. 
TACITUS,  ....  By  William  Bodham  Donne. 

LUCIAN, . By  the  Editor. 

PLATO . By  Clifton  W.  Collins. 

THE  GREEK  ANTHOLOGY,  ...  By  Lord  Neaves. 

LIVY, . By  the  Editor. 

OVID, . By  the  Rev.  A.  Church,  M.A. 

CATULLUS,  TIBULLUS,  &  PROPERTIUS,  ByJ.  Davies,  M.A. 
DEMOSTHENES,  .  .  By  the  Rev.  W.  J.  Brodribb,  M.A. 

ARISTOTLE, ...  By  Sir  Alex.  Grant,  Bart.,  LL.D. 

THUCYDIDES, . By  the  Editor. 

LUCRETIUS,  .  .  .  .  By  W.  H.  Mallock,  M.A. 
PINDAR,  ...  By  the  Rev.  F.  D.  Morice,  M.A 


HEKODOTUS 


c 


nr 


GEORGE  C.  SWAYNEj  M.A. 

UTI  FELLOW  OF  CORPUS  CHRISTI  COLLEGE,  OX1 


PHILADELPHIA: 

J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY. 


BOSTON  COLLEGE  LIBRARY 


TA 

.S°iA? 
|  ^0 


126080 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 


INTRODUCTION,  .  • 

• 

• 

• 

• 

1 

CHAP.  I.  CRIESUS,  .  •  . 

• 

• 

• 

• 

11 

it 

II.  CYRUS,  .  . 

25 

it 

III.  EGYPT,  .... 

• 

* 

• 

• 

40 

it 

IT.  CAMBYSES,  .  . 

• 

• 

• 

• 

65 

it 

Y.  DARIUS, 

• 

• 

• 

• 

75 

n 

VI.  SCYTHIA, 

# 

• 

» 

• 

86 

n 

VII.  THE  TYRANTS  OF  GREECE, 

• 

• 

• 

• 

100 

ii 

VIII.  IONIA,  .  w  . 

t.  g  >••'*  . 

-i  .* 

• 

V 

• 

• 

• 

114 

it 

IX.  MARATHON,  .  .  "  . 

V  Ur-  ■ 

V  - 

• 

t 

.  131 

n 

X.  THERMOPYLAE, 

• 

V*  • 

• 

142 

It 

XI.  SALAMIS, 

• 

• 

• 

• 

156 

<• 

XII.  PLATJSA  AND  MYCALE,  . 

• 

• 

• 

• 

166 

II 

XIII.  CONCLUDING  REMARKS,' 

• 

• 

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• 

178 

INTBODUCTION. 


So  little  is  known  for  certain  regarding  the  life  of 
Herodotus,  “  the  father  of  history,”  that  it  may  well 
be  a  subject  of  congratulation  that  he  has  not  shared 
the  fate  of  Homer,  the  father  of  poetry,  in  having 
doubt  thrown  on  his  individual  existence. 

He  appears  to  have  been  born  about  the  year  484 
before  Christ,  between  the  two  great  Persian  invasions 
of  Greece,  at  Halicarnassus,  a  colony  of  Dorian  Greeks 
on  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor.  His  family  was  one  of 
some  distinction.  From  his  writings  alone  we  should 
know  that  he  received  a  liberal  education,  and  became 
familiarly  acquainted  with  the  current  literature  of  his 
day;  and  the  epic  form  of  his  great  prose  work,  besides 
numberless  expressions  and  allusions,  bears  witness  to 
the  fact  that  the  Homeric  poems  were  his  constant 
study  and  model. 

His  early  manhood  v7as  spent  in  extensive  travels, 
in  which  he  accumulated  the  miscellaneous  materials 
of  his  narrative.  He  visited,  in  the  course  of  them,  a 
great  part  of  the  then  known  world ;  from  Babylon 
and  Susa  in  the  east,  to  the  coast  of  Italy  in  the 

a.  c.  vol.'  iii.  £• 


2 


UERODOTUS. 


west ;  and  from  the  mouths  of  the  Dnieper  and  the 
Danube  in  the  north,  to  the  cataracts  of  Upper  Egypt 
southwards.  Thus  his  travels  covered  a  distance  of 
thirty-one  degrees  of  longitude  from  east  to  west,  and 
twenty-four  of  latitude  from  north  to  south — an  area  ol 
something  like  1700  miles  square.  It  was  an  immense 
range  in  days  when  there  were  few  facilities  for  locomo¬ 
tion,  and  when  e^ery  country  was  supposed  to  be  at  wai 
with  its  neighbours,  unless  bound  by  express  treaties 
of  peace  and  alliance.  He  travelled,  too,  it  must  be 
remembered,  in  an  age  when  robbers  by  land  and  sea 
were  members  of  a  recognised  profession, — very  lucra 
tive  and  not  entirely  disreputable  :  when  (as  we  shall 
see  hereafter)  disappointed  political  or  military  adven¬ 
turers  took  to  piracy  as  a  last  resort,  without  any  sort 
of  compunction.  “  Pray,  friends,  are  you  pirates, — or 
what  1  ”  is  the  question  which  old  Nestor  puts  to  his 
visitors,  in  the  ‘  Odyssey,’  without  the  least  intention 
either  of  jesting  or  of  giving  offence.  A  voyage  itself 
was  such  a  perilous  matter,  that  a  Greek  seaman  never, 
if  he  could  help  it,  lost  sight  of  land  in  the  daytime,  or 
remained  on  board  his  ship  during  the  night;  and  at 
a  later  date  the  philosopher  Aristotle  distinctly  admits 
that  even  his  ideal  “brave”  man  may,  without  prejudice 
t:  his  character,  fear  the  being  drowned  at  sea.  The 
range  of  our  author’s  travels  is,  however,  less  wonderful 
than  their  busy  minuteness.  He  is  traveller,  archaeo¬ 
logist,  natural  philosopher,  and  historian  combined  in 
one.  He  appears  scarcely  ever  to  have  concluded  his 
visit  to  a  country  without  exhausting  every  available 
source  of  information.  Personal  inquiry  alone  seems  to 
have  satisfied  him,  wherever  it  could  be  made  ;  though 
consulted  carefully  all  written  materials  within  his 


INTRODUCTION. 


3 


reach,  records  public  and  private,  sacred  and  secular. 
He  rightly  calls  his  work  a  “  History,”  for  the  Greek 
word  “  history  ”  means  really  “  investigation,”  though 
it  has  passed  into  a  different  use  with  us.  In  Egypt 
alone  he  seems  to  have  spent  many  years,  visiting 
and  exploring  its  most  remarkable  cities — Memphis, 
Ilieropolis,  and  the  “  hundred  -  gated  ”  Thebes.  In 
Greece  proper,  as  well  as  its  colonies  on  the  Asiatic 
seaboard  and  in  South  Italy,  and  in  all  the  islands 
of  the  Archipelago,  he  is  everywhere  at  home,  as  well 
as  in  the  remoter  regions  of  Asia  Minor. 

Such  details  of  his  life  as  have  come  down  to  us 
rest  on  somewhat  doubtful  authority.  It  is  said 
that  he  was  driven  from  Halicarnassus  to  Samos  by 
the  tyranny  of  Lygdamis,  grandson  of  that  Queen 
Artemisia  whose  conduct  he  nevertheless,  with  some 
generosity,  immortalises  in  his  account  of  the  battle  of 
Salamis ;  that  in  Samos  he  learned  the  Ionic  dialect 
in  which  his  history  is  written ;  that  in  time  he 
returned  to  head  a  successful  insurrection  against 
Lygdamis,  but  then,  finding  himself  unpopular,  joined 
in  the  Athenian  colonisation  of  Thurium,  in  Italy, 
where  he  died  and  was  buried,  and  where  his  tomb  in 
the  market-place  was  long  shown.  His  residence  at 
Samos  may  have  been  a  fiction  invented  to  explain 
the  dialect  in  which  he  wrote,  which  was  more  pro 
bably  that  consecrated  by  usage  to  historical  composi¬ 
tion.  At  one  time  he  appears  to  have  removed  to 
Athens,  where  he  received  great  honours,  partly  in  the 
substantial  shape  of  ten  talents  (more  than  £2400), 
after  a  public  recitation  of  his  history.  According  to 
one  story,  he  was  commissioned  to  read  it  before  the 
Assembly  of  all  the  Greek  States  on  the  occasion  of 


4 


HERODOTUS. 


the  great  national  games  held  every  fourtli  year  at 
Olympia  in  Elis. 

Amongst  the  audience  on  some  such  occasion,  most, 
probably  at  Athens,  a  young  Athenian,  Thucydides, 
is  said  to  have  been  present ;  and  the  introduction 
which  then  took  place  may  have  given  the  first 
stimulus  to  the  future  historian  of  the  Peloponnesian 
war,  who,  despairing  of  surpassing  his  predecessor  as 
a  charming  story-teller,  boldly  struck  out  for  himself 
a  new  path,  as  the  founder  of  the  critical  method.  It 
seems  also  that  at  Athens  Herodotus  enjoyed  the  friend¬ 
ship  of  the  great  tragic  poet  Sophocles.  Plutarch  has 
preserved  the  opening  words  of  a  poem  in  which  the 
tragedian  compliments  the  historian,  after  he  had  quit¬ 
ted  Athens  for  Thurium.  In  two  of  the  tragedies  of 
Sophocles,  the  ‘  (Ed  ip  us  at  Colonos’  and  the  ‘Antigone,’ 
are  passages  plainly  adapted  from  this  history.  The 
society  of  Athens  under  Pericles,  comprising  all  that 
was  most  select  and  brilliant  in  art  and  intellect,  must 
have  had  great  attractions  for  Herodotus ;  and  it  im¬ 
plies  some  self-denial  on  his  part  to  have  torn  him¬ 
self  away  from  it.  Probably  he  longed  to  exercise, 
as  most  Greeks  did,  full  political  rights,  which,  as  an 
alien,  he  could  not  enjoy  at  Athens,  though  he  was 
evidently  an  enthusiastic  admirer  of  her  institutions. 

After  his  emigration  to  Thurium,  he  seems  to  have 
devoted  his  life  to  the  elaboration  and  amplification  of 
his  great  work.  Several  passages  in  his  history  prove 
that  he  was,  at  all  events,  acquainted  with  the  earlier 
events  of  the  great  Peloponnesian  war.  The  balance 
of  evidence  seems  to  point  to  his  death  having  occurred 
when  he  was  about  sixty.  If  so,  he  at  least  escaped 
witnessing,  as  the  result  of  that  war,  the  hill  of  his 


INTRODUCTION. 


5 


beloved  Athens  from  her  well -won  supremacy  over 
Greece. 

The  history  of  Herodotus  is  a  great  prose  epic,  sug¬ 
gested  doubtless  to  the  author  in  early  life  by  the  fame 
of  those  events  which  were  still  fresh  in  the  minds  of 
all  men — the  repulse  of  the  Persian  invasion,  and  the 
liberation  of  Greece.  The  Greeks  had  thrown  off  col¬ 
onies,  from  time  to  time,  into  the  islands  of  the 
Levant  and  the  west  coast  of  Asia.*  These  Asiatic 
Greeks  had  actually  been  enslaved  by  Persia ;  and 
European  Greece,  though  free  from  the  first,  could 
only  wake  to  the  full  consciousness  of  that  freedom 
when  the  overshadowing  dread  of  the  monster  Asiatic 
power  had  been  dissipated.  Independence  could  be 
but  a  name  for  either  Athenian  or  Spartan,  so  long  as 
the  very  sight  of  the  Persian  dress  (as  Herodotus  tells 
us)  inspired  terror.  Until  Miltiades  won  Marathon,  by 
a  rush  as  apparently  desperate  as  our  Balaklava  charge, 
the  Persians  had  been  reputed  invincible.  Their  second 
expedition  against  Greece  was  intended  to  repair  the 
damaged  prestige  of  Persian  valour,  by  setting  in  mo¬ 
tion  overwhelming  numbers.  It  seemed  as  if  the  dead 
weight  alone  of  Asiatic  fleets  and  armies  must  carry  all 
before  it.  It  did  indeed  carry  Athens,  but  not  the  Athen¬ 
ians.  The  sea-fight  of  Salamis  was  won  by  citizens  who 
had  lost  their  city.  The  two  great  victories  which  fol¬ 
lowed  within  a  year — Platsea  and  Mycale,  gained  on 
the  same  day — indicated  for  ever  the  superiority  of 
Europeans  over  Asiatics.  The  latter  was  fought  out 

*  Of  these  colonies,  some  were  Ionian,  some  Dorian,  and 
some  fl£olian,  having  been  originally  founded  by  each  of  these 
old  Greek  races.  But  Herodotus  usually  speaks  of  them  all  as 
r<  lonians,”  as  these  took  the  most  active  share  in  the  war. 


6 


HERODOTUS. 


on  Asiatic  ground — the  beginning  of  the  great  retribu¬ 
tion  which  has  continued  even  to  the  present  time, 
represented  by  uncertain  tides  of  Western  conquest 
gradually  gaining  ground  on  the  East. 

Never  before  or  since  has  an  author  employed  him¬ 
self  with  grander  subject-matter  than  Herodotus.  The 
victories  of  Freedom  in  all  ages,  more  than  any  other 
conquests,  have  stirred  the  human  heart  to  its  depths. 
It  is  the  cause  that  alone  humanises  war,  and  makes  it 
other  than  brutal  butchery.  Many  such  victories  there 
have  been  in  the  course  of  time,  but  all  of  local  and 
limited  importance  in  comparison.  And,  indeed,  per¬ 
haps  Marathon  made  Morgarteri  possible.  By  Salamis 
and  Plataea  the  world  may  have  escaped  being  oriental¬ 
ised  for  ever,  and  bound  in  the  immobility  of  China. 
These  battles,  by  saving  freedom  and  securing  progress, 
anticipated  the  overthrow  of  the  Saracens  before  Tours, 
and  of  the  Turks  before  Vienna.  Herodotus,  indeed, 
could  not  see  all  this,  when  the  plan  of  his  great  his¬ 
tory  dawned  on  his  mind,  but  the  salvation  of  his  be¬ 
loved  Greece  was  to  him  a  sufficient  inspiration. 

We  find  the  same  unity  of  design  in  the  history  of 
Herodotus  as  in  Homer’s  great  epic.  As  in  the  ‘Iliad,’ 
not  the  siege  of  Troy  but  the  wrath  of  Achilles  is  the 
continual  burden,  so,  in  our  author’s  work,  not  the  his¬ 
tory  of  Greece  but  the  destruction  of  the  great  Persian 
armada  is  its  one  great  subject.  All  the  other  local 
histories,  though  introduced  with  much  fulness  of 
detail,  are  subordinate  to  this  consummation.  They 
How  to  it  like  the  tributaries  of  a  river,  whose  might 
and  grandeur  make  men  love  to  explore  its  sources. 
I  lo  gives  us  in  succession  the  early  history  of  Lydia, 
of  Babylon,  and  of  Assyria,  in  order  to  trace  the  rise 


INTRODUCTION. 


? 


and  fall  of  those  several  Asiatic  powers  which  merged 
at  last  in  the  great  empire  of  the  Modes  and  Persians, 
who  are  the  actors  in  his  true  drama,  to  which  these 
preliminary  histories  are  a  discursive  prologue.  His 
work  is  not  a  romance  founded  on  fact,  like  Xeno¬ 
phon’s  ‘  Education  of  Cyrus,’  or  Shakspeare’s  his¬ 
torical  plays,  or  Scott’s  ‘  Quentin  Dunvard.’  It  is 
serious  history,  as  history  was  understood  in  his  time. 
But  the  historian’s  appetite  was  omnivorous  in  the 
collection  of  materials,  and  robustly  digested  fable  and 
fact  alike.  His  mind  was  like  that  of  Froissart  and 
Philip  de  Comines,  who  lived  in  another  age,  when 
miracles  were  thought  matters  of  course.  Yet  in  He¬ 
rodotus  we  perceive  the  dawning  of  that  criticism 
which  finds  its  full  expression  in  Thucydides,  who  was 
in  mind  a  modern  historian,  though  less  fastidious  as  to 
the  evidence  of  facts  than  a  man  of  our  century  would 
be.  The  incredulity  of  Herodotus,  when  it  shows  itself, 
seems  rather  evoked  by  the  suspected  veracity  of  his 
informant,  or  some  contradiction  in  phenomena,  than 
by  the  incredible  nature  of  the  facts  themselves. 

He  has  been  nu'ist  found  fault  with  for  ascribing 
effects  to  inadequate  causes  ;  but  we  ought  rather  to  feel 
grateful  to  him,  considering  the  mould  in  which  the 
mind  of  his  time  was  cast,  for  endeavouring  to  trace 
the  connection  between  cause  and  effect  at  all.  In 
Homer  the  gods  arc  always  in  requisition,  and  always 
at  hand  to  manage  matters,  even  in  minutest  details. 
That  Herodotus  had  a  religious  mind  there  can  be  no 
doubt,  for  he  speaks  even  of  foreign  and  barbaric 
rites  and  beliefs  with  intense  respect.  And  the  great 
Liberation  War  of  Greece  was,  in  its  circumstances,  cal¬ 
culated  to  illustrate  one  great  pervading  principle  of  his 


8 


HERODOTUS. 


religion — tliat  heaven  will  not  allow  an  excess  of 
mortal  prosperity.  The  rock  which  overhung  the  hay 
of  Salamis,  whence  Xerxes  looked  down  on  his 
host,  might  well  bear  the  statue  of  Nemesis.  Nemesis, 
in  the  religious  system  of  the  ancient  Greeks,  is 
the  great  divine  stewardess,  who  assigns  to  man  his 
quota  of  good  or  of  evil.  If  man  takes  to  himself  more 
good  than  his  share,  she  adjusts  the  balance  by  giving 
him  evil;  for  the  gods  are  jealous  of  those  Avho  try  to 
vie  with  them.  Did  not  Apollo  flay  Marsyas  for  daring 
to  contend  with  him  on  the  lyre  1  Did  not  Minerva 
change  Arachne  into  a  spider  for  boasting  to  be  a  better 
spinster  than  herself  1  So  the  Sovereign  of  the  gods 
cannot  endure  the  luxury  and  pride  of  the  earthly 
despot.  It  becomes  the  business  of  Nemesis  to  com¬ 
pass  his  destruction.  She  invokes  against  him  Atk, 
or  Infatuation.  At6  blindfolds  his  mind,  and  forces 
him  to  enter  of  his  own  will  on  the  path  whose  end  is 
destruction.  To  ward  off  this,  men  resort  to  sacrifice ; 
but  any  sacrifice  short  of  what  is  most  precious  is  use¬ 
less.  Polycrates,  the  despot  of  Samos,  almost  insults 
the  gods  in  supposing  that  throwing  a  jewel  into  the 
sea  wTill  atone  for  the  crime  of  prosperous  sovereignty  ; 
the  ring  comes  back  to  him  in  a  fish  brought  to  hi3 
table.  Was  not  Agamemnon  compelled  to  sacrifice 
his  daughter,  the  pride  of  his  house,  before  he  could 
obtain  a  fair  wind  to  sail  to  Troy  ?  It  seems  to  have 
been  an  article  of  the  Athenians’  creed,  which  Herod¬ 
otus  shared,  that  there  was  a  sort  of  wickedness  in 
one  free  man  attempting  to  rise  above  the  level  of  his 
fellow-citizens;  and  perhaps  they  thought  that  then 
honourable  punishment  of  ostracism  was  devised  as 


TXT  I,  Ob  CCTIOX. 


5 


rhuch  for  a  groat  man’s  good  as  for  theirs.*  Tt  was  a 
kind  of  inverted  doctrine  of  the  divine  right  of  kings, 
traces  of  which  we  find  throughout  the  Attic  literature. 
Had  Herodotus  lived  in  our  day,  we  may  imagine 
that  his  attention  would  have  been  powerfully  arrested 
by  the  fate  of  Napoleon  the  First,  or  the  Czar  Nicholas 
of  Russia,  as  illustrating  this  sentiment. 

Frequent  references  will  he  found  in  these  pages  to 
Mr  Rawlinsoji’s  ‘  History  of  Herodotus but  it  is 
desired  here  to  acknowledge  more  distinctly  the  use 
which  has  been  made  of  his  exhaustive  volumes. 

• 

The  History  of  Herodotus  was  divided  by  iho  an¬ 
cients  into  nine  books,  each  bearing  the  name  of  one 
of  the  Muses.  His  own  order  of  narration  is  very  dis¬ 
cursive,  for  he  digresses  into  local  history  and  anecdote 
continually.  In  these  pages  a  rearrangement  into 
chapters  will  perhaps  be  more  welcome  to  the  general 
reader. 

*  Ostracism  was  so  called  from  the  oyster-shells  on  which 
Athenian  citizens  wrote  their  names  in  voting.  Any  man  of 
more  than  average  greatness  or  goodness  was  liable  to  incur 
this  left-handed  compliment,  Avliich  consisted  in  his  being  re¬ 
quested  to  go  abroad  for  a  term  of  years,  in  case  a  sufficient 
number  of  votes  was  given.  It  was  instituted  as  a  security  to 
democracy,  and  as  preventive  of  coups  d'etat.  It  was  dis¬ 
credited  at  last  by  its  application  to  the  case  of  a  vulgar  dema¬ 
gogue.  The  Syracusans  had  a  similar  institution  called  “  Petal* 
ism,”  from  the  leaves  of  olive  on  which  the  names  were  written. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


CHAPTER  L 

CROESUS. 


tf  And  ever,  against  eating  cares, 

Lap  me.  in  soft  Lydian  airs.” 

—Milton,  “  L’ Allegro.” 

Tn  the  great  quarrel  between  Europe  and  Asia,  which 
is  the  end  and  scope  of  our  author’s  work,  it  is  of  the 
utmost  consequence  to  the  satisfaction  of  his  religious 
principles  that  the  balance  of  blame  should  incline  to 
the  side  of  the  true  offenders.  According  to  the  show¬ 
ing  of  the  Persians  themselves,  who  had  their  story¬ 
tellers,  if  not  historians,  the  Asiatics  were  the  first  of¬ 
fenders.  A  Phoenician  skipper  went  to  Argos,  and  carried 
off  Io,  the  king’s  daughter,  to  Egypt,  whither  he  was 
bound.  By  way  of  reprisals,  the  Greeks  then  carried 
off  two  women  for  one — rEuropa  from  Tyre,  and  Medea 
from  Colchis.  This  may  have  partly  excused  Alex¬ 
ander  or  Paris,  son  of  Priam  king  of  Troy,  for  carry¬ 
ing  off  Helen,  the  wife  of  Menelaus,  from  Sparta,  in 
the  second  generation  afterwards.  But  then,  said  the 
Persians,  the  Greeks  put  themselves  clearly  in  the  wrong 


12 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


— for  instead  of  carrying  off  another  lady,  they  made 
the  abduction  of  Helen  a  case  of  war.  “  To  carry  off 
women  was  manifestly  the  deed  of  unjust  men,  but  to 
make  so  serious  matter  of  their  abduction  was  the  part 
of  simpletons,  since  they  hardly  could  have  been  car¬ 
ried  off  without  their  own  consent.”  Indeed,  accord¬ 
ing  to  one  account,  Io  at  least  eloped  of  her  own  free 
will.  But  in  fact,  our  historian  thinks,  from  the  time 
of  the  Trojan  war  the  Asiatics  looked  upon  the  Greeks 
as  their  natural  enemies. 

Without  discussing  too  curiously  all  these  tales, 
Herodotus  has  no  doubt  in  his  own  mind  that  the 
blame  ought  to  lie  with  the  Asiatics,  since  Croesus, 
king  of  Lydia,  was  the  first  historical  aggressor. _  Be¬ 
fore  his  time  all  the  Greeks  were  free,  and  he  was  the 
first  Asiatic  potentate  Avho,  by  fair  means  or  foul, 
reduced  Grecian  states  to  various  kinds  of  dependency. 
The  towns  on  the  coast  he  subdued  by  force,  easily 
enough.  He  had  proposed  to  try  the  same  means  with 
the  islanders  of  the  Archipelago,  when  he  was  dis¬ 
suaded  from  his  purpose  by  a  shrewd  jest.  Among  other 
travellers  who  visited  his  court  was  one  of  the  Seven 
Wise  Men  of  Greece — Bias  of  Priene.  The  king 
asked  him,  as  he  did  all  His  visitors,  what  was  the  last 
news?  “The  islanders,”  said  Bias,  “are  busy  raising 
a  force  of  cavalry  with  which  they  mean  to  invade 
Lydia.”  Croesus  declared  it  was  the  very  thing  he 
could  wish, — but  he  hardly  believed  they  could  be  so 
utterly  foolish.  Bias  ventured  to  think  that  the 
Greek  islanders  would  be  equally  amused  to  hear  that 
the  Lydians  intended  to  attack  them  on  their  own 
element.  The  king  took  the  hint :  and  it  is  the 
earliest  specimen  we  have  of  the  wisdom  which  after- 


CROSS  US. 


13 


wards  so  often  clothed  itself  in  the  language  of  the 
“  Court  Fool.” 

The  Lydians  appear  to  have  been  a  people,  like  the 
Egyptians,  of  nearly  immemorial  civilisation,  and,  like 
the  Asiatic  tribes  who  fought  for  the  Trojans,  to  have 
had  a  common  origin  with  the  Greeks  themselves,  and 
to  have  differed  little  from  them  in  manner's  and  cus¬ 
toms.  There  is  manifest  truth  in  the  tradition  which 
connected  them  with  the  Etruscans  and  the  Pelasgians; 
and  their  three  dynasties,  of  the  second  of  which  Her¬ 
cules  was  said  to  be  the  founder,  may  have  represented 
three  cognate  races  of  conquerors,  like  the  Saxons, 
Danes,  and  Hormans  with  us.  They  appear  to  have 
been  at  first  a  warlike  people,  but  to  have  been  ener¬ 
vated  by  conquest,  and  then,  like  the  descendants  of 
the  ancient  Italians,  to  have  become  chiefly  famous  as 
artists;  especially  as  musicians. 

This  Croesus,  the  son  of  Alyattes,  in  time  extended 
his  empire  over  most  of  the  countries  westward  of  the 
river  Halys.  He  was,  in  some  sort,  the  Solomon  of  his 
age ;  fabulously  rich,  magnificent  in  his  expenditure, 
and  of  unbounded  hospitality;  so  that  great  men  came  to 
visit  him  from  all  parts,  and  to  gaze  on  the  splendours 
of  his  court.  Amongst  them  was  Solon  the  Athenian. 
Solon  had  remodelled  the  laws  of  Athens,  with  the 
concurrence  of  the  Athenian  people  ,  but,  knowing  the 
fickleness  of  his  countrymen,  had  gone  into  voluntary 
exile  for  ten  years,  having  bound  them  by  oath  that 
they  would  make  no  change  in  their  institutions  in  his 
absence.  Croesus,  in  the  course  of  his  conversations 
with  Solon,  wished  to  extract  from  him  the  confession 
that  he  considered  him  the  happiest  of  mankind. 
Solon  refused  to  account  any  man  happy  till  death  had 


t4  THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 

set  its  seal  on  his  felicity,  and  took  occasion  to  warn 
Croesus  of  the  instability  of  all  human  affairs,  dilat¬ 
ing  especially  on  the  jealous  nature  of  the  gods.  The 
king  could  not  brook  the  plain-speaking  of  his  guest, 
and  dismissed  him  in  disfavour.  He  was  soon  to 
prove  the  truth  of  his  warning:  the  terrible  Nemesis, 
says  our  author,  was  awakened — probably,  he  thinks, 
by  this  very  boast  of  thinking  himself  the  happiest  of 
mortals.  Then  he  goes  on  to  tell,  in  his  own  delightful 
fashion — 

The  Story  of  Adrastus. 

Croesus  had  two  sons — the  one  grievously  afflicted,  for 
he  was  deaf  and  dumb,  but  the  other  by  far  the  first 
of  the  youths  of  his  age,  by  name  Atys.  Now  Croesus 
dreamed  that  he  should  lose  this  Atys  by  the  stroke  of 
an  iron  weapon.  Through  fear  of  this  dream,  he  took 
him  no  longer  with  him  to  the  wars,  but  sought  out 
for  him  a  wife  who  might  keep  him  at  home.  Nay, 
he  even  had  all  the  weapons  that  hung  in  the  men’s 
rooms  stacked  away  in  the  inner  chambers,  lest  any  of 
them  might  fall  on  him  by  accident.  While  the  mar¬ 
riage  was  preparing,  there  came  to  seek  refuge  at  Sardis 
a  Phrygian  of  royal  birth  who  had  committed  homi¬ 
cide.  Croesus  purified  him  with  the  due  rites,  and 
then  inquired  his  name.  He  said,  “  I  am  Adrastus, 
son  of  Gordias;  I  slew  my  brother  by  misadventure, 
and  my  father  has  turned  me  out  of  doors,  and  I  have 
lost  all.”  And  Croesus  answered,  “  Thou  art  the  son 
of  a  friend,  and  art  come  to  friends ;  with  me  thou 
shalt  lack  nothing.  Thou  wilt  do  best  to  bear  thv 
mishap  as  lightly  as  thou  mayest.”  About  this  time 
it  came  to  pass  that  a  huge  wild  boar  came  out  of 


C IKES  US. 


15 


Mount  Olympus  in  Mysia  and  laid  waste  the  fields  ; 
and  the  people  came  to  Croesus  and  besought  him  to 
send  to  them  his  son  to  help  them  with  the  hunting- 
train.  And  Croesus,  mindful  of  the  dream,  refused  to 
send  his  son,  but  promised  to  send  the  train  and  picked 
sportsmen  of  the  Lydians.  But  his  son  Atys  coming 
in,  was  much  vexed,  and  said,  “  Thou  bringest  me  to 
shame,  my  father,  in  the  eyes  of  the  citizens  and  of  my 
bride,  in  that  thou  dost  forbid  me  to  go  to  the  wars 
and  the  chase,  as  though  I  were  a  coward.”  But  Croesus 
said,  “  I  hold  thee  no  coward,  yet  I  do  wisely,  for  I 
was  warned  by  a  dream  that  an  iron  weapon  should 
slay  thee ;  therefore  did  I  give  thee  a  wife  to  keep 
thee  at  home.  For  thou  art  in  truth  my  only  son,  for 
the  other  I  count  as  though  he  were  not,  being  deat 
and  dumb.”  Then  answered  the  son,  “It  is  natural, 
my  father,  to  take  good  heed  on  my  behalf,  after 
such  a  dream.  But  what  iron  weapon  hath  a  boar, 
or  what  hands  to  hurl  it  1  If  indeed  thou  hadst 
dreamed  that  I  should  die  by  a  tusk,  thou  wouldst 
be  wise  in  doing  what  thou  doest,  but  not  now,  for 
this  war  is  not  with  men.”  Croesus  confessed  him 
self  persuaded  by  these  words,  and  allowed  his  son  to 
join  the  chase  ;  but  he  begged  Adrastus  to  go  with  him 
and  guard  him,  lest  any  evil  should  happen  by  the 
way ;  and  Adrastus,  though  heavy  of  heart,  deemed 
that  he  could  deny  Croesus  nothing  in  return  for  his 
kindness,  and  went  accordingly.  So  the  hunters  made 
a  great  hunt,  and  having  brought  the  boar  to  bay,  stood 
round  and  threw  javelins  at  him.  And  it  came  to  pass 
that  Adrastus  threw  his  javelin,  and  missed  the  boar, 
and  killed  the  son  of  Croesus.  So  the  dream  was  ful¬ 
filled.  Now  Croesus,  when  he  heard  the  news,  was 


1G 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


sorely  troubled,  and  in  his  anguish  called  on  Jupiter  as 
lord  of  purification,  as  lefrd  of  the  hearth,  as  lord  of 
companionship,  to  witness  what  he  suffered  at  the 
hands  of  his  suppliant,  his  guest,  and  the  man  whom 
he  had  sent  to  guard  his  son.  And  now  came  the 
Lydians  hearing  the  corpse,  and  behind  them  followed 
the  slayer,  Adrastus.  And  he,  standing  before  the 
bier  and  stretching  forth  his  hands,  besought  Croesus 
to  take  his  life,  as  he  was  no  longer  worthy  to  live. 
Then  Croesus,  though  in  great  grief,  pitied  him  and 
said,  “  Thou  hast  made  full  atonement,  in  that  thou 
hast  judged  thyself  worthy  of  death.  Thou  art  not 
to  blame,  hut  as  a  tool  in  the  hands  of  some  god,  who 
long  since  did  signify  to  me  what  should  come  to 
pass.”  So  Croesus  buried  his  son,  and  spared  Adrastus. 
But  when  he  was  departed,  Adrastus,  as  thinking  him¬ 
self  of  all  men  the  most  wretched,  slew  himself  upon 
the  tomb.  And  Croesus  mourned  for  his  son  for  the 
space  of  two  years.  But  at  the  end  of  that  time  he  was 
fain  to  bestir  himself,  for  there  came  to  him  a  rumour 
that  Cyrus  the  Persian  had  conquered  the  Medes,  and 
was  exalting  himself  above  all  the  kings  of  the  earth  ; 
and  he  hasted,  if  it  were  possible,  to  crush  the  Persian 
power  before  it  became  too  strong. 

Croesus,  in  Herodotus’  story,  appears  in  close  rela¬ 
tions  with  the  god  Apollo.  The  world-famous  shrine  of 
this  god  was  at  Delphi  on  Mount  Parnassus,  currently 
believed  to  be  the  exact  centre  of  the  earth — the  earth 
itself  being  looked  upon  as  a  round  disc.  In  the  temple 
there,  the  site  of  which  was  supposed  to  be  the  spot 
where  the  serpent  Python  was  slain  by  the  arrows  of 
the  Sun-god,  there  was  an  oracle,  the  most  renowned 


C1MESUS. 


17 


in  tlie  world.  Its  answers,  in  spite  of  tlieir  ambiguity, 
guided  the  public  and  private  affairs  of  the  Greeks  to 
an  extent  which  appears  to  us  now  almost  ludicrous. 
Though  generally  vague  and  perplexing,  yet  they  were 
often  so  much  to  the  point,  that  some  of  the  old  Fathers 
of  the  Church  attributed  them  to  Satanic  influence,  as 
they  doubtless  would  table-turning  and  spirit-rapping, 
if  they  lived  now.  It  was  also  believed  that  their 
efficacy  ceased  exactly  with  the  coming  of  our  Lord, 
by  which  time,  at  all  events,  faith  in  them  had  worn 
out.  Milton  alludes  to  this  tradition  in  his  “  Hymn 
on  the  Nativity  — 

“  The  oracles  are  dumb  ; 

No  voice  or  hideous  hum 

Runs  through  the  arched  roof  in  words  deceiving. 
Apollo  from  his  shrine 
Can  no  more  divine, 

With  hollow  shriek  the  steep  of  Delphos  leaving. 

No  nightly  trance,  or  brea^.Ad  spell, 

Inspires  the  pale-eyed  priest  from  the  prophetic  cell.” 

Before  he  determined  on  his  expedition  against 
Cyrus,  Croesus  sent  to  test  the  most  famous  oracles  in 
Greece  and  that  of  Jupiter  Ammon  in  Libya,  in  order 
that  he  might  know  which  was  most  to  be  trusted. 
And  he  made  the  trial  thus  :  he  told  his  messengers 
to  ask  each  oracle,  on  the  hundredth  day  after  their 
departure,  what  Croesus  was  doing  at  that  particular 
hour.  The  other  answers  are  unrecorded,  but  the 
answer  of  the  priestess  of  Apollo  at  Delphi  ran 
thus : — 

“  Truly  the  tale  of  the  sand  I  know,  and  the  measures  of 
ocean — 

Deftly  the  dumb  I  read,  I  list  to  the  voice  of  the  silent. 

A.  c.  vol.  iii.  B 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTIS. 


1 8 

Savour  lias  reached  my  sense  from  afar  of  a  strong¬ 
skinned  tortoise 

Simmering,  mixed  together  with  flesh  of  lamb,  in  a  caldron  ; 
Brazen  the  bed  is  beneath,  and  brazen  the  coverlet  over.” 

Croesus,  when  he  received  this  answer,  judged  the  god 
of  Delphi  to  be  the  wisest,  since  he  alone  could  tell 
exactly  what  he  was  doing — for  he  had  been  cooking  the 
flesh  of  a  tortoise,  mixed  with  lamb’s  flesh,  in  a  brass 
caldron  with  a  brass  lid.  Accordingly  lie  sent  rich 
presents  to  the  shrine  of  Apollo,  and  ordered  all  his  sub¬ 
jects  to  pay  him  especial  honours.  Thus  having  satis¬ 
fied  himself  that  this  oracle  at  least  /vas  true,  he  next 
sent  to  inquire  if  he  should  go  to  war  with  the  Per¬ 
sians.  The  answer  was,  that  if  he  did  so  “he  would 
ruin  a  great  empire at  which  answer  Croesus  rejoiced 
greatly,  for  he  expected  to  destroy  the  empire  of  the 
Persians.  He  sent  a  third  time  and  inquired  of  the 
oracle  if  his  reign  would  be  longl  And  the  oracle 
answered  : — - 

“  When  it  shall  come  to  pass  that  the  Medes  have  a  mule 
for  monarch,  * 

Lydian,  tender  of  foot,  then  along  by  the  pebbles  ot 
Ilermus 

Flee,  and  delay  not  then,  nor  shame  thee  to  quail  as  a 
coward.” 

Croesus  rejoiced  still  more  when  he  heard  this,  for  he 
thought  that,  as  a  mule  could  never  reign  over  men, 
the  rule  of  himself  and  his  descendants  would  never 
come  to  an  end. 

/ 

His  next  step,  still  under  the  advice  of  the  oracle, 
was  to  make  friends  of  the  most  powerful  Greek 
states.  At  this  point  Herodotus,  having  wound  his 
readers  up  to  the  expectation  of  a  catastrophe,  like  some 


C  IKE  SITS. 


10 


modern  novelists,  diverges  into  one  of  his  favourite 
episodes,  and  takes  advantage  of  the  fact  that  Crcesus 
found  the  leading  Greek  states  to  he  the  Lacedemon¬ 
ians  and  Athenians,  to  relate  a  part  of  tlieir  history. 

At  Athens,  Pisistratus,  the  son  of  Hippocrates,  had 
now  raised  himself  to  absolute  power.  Athens  being  di¬ 
vided  between  the  parties  of  the  Plain  and  the  Coast,  he 
had  headed  the  third,  called  the  party  of  the  Mountain, 
and  by  pretending  that  his  enemies  had  wounded  him, 
managed  to  be  allowed  a  body-guard,  and  then  seized  on 
the  citadel.  He  had  some  vicissitudes  of  fortune  before 
he  was  firm  in  the  saddle,  and  on  one  occasion  returned 
to  Athens  in  a  chariot  accompanied  by  a  woman  of 
great  beauty  and  stature,  who  personated  the  goddess 
Atlienk  (Minerva).*  The  success  of  the  imposition  is 
possible,  if  we  remember  that  the  early  Greeks  be¬ 
lieved  that  the  gods  sometimes  came  down  visibly 
among  mortals.  By  whatever  devices,  however,  he 
gained  or  secured  the  sovereignty,  he  appears  to 
have  ruled  well  and  righteouslv,  and  to  have  done 
much,  for  the  civilisation  and  glory  of  Athens. 

The  Spartans  or  Lacedaemonians  were  now  beginning 
to  assert  the  leadership  which  they  afterwards  ob¬ 
tained  in  the  Peloponnese,  as  a  consequence  of  those 
laws  of  Lycurgus,  whose  sole  end  and  object  was  to 
make  Sparta  a  model  barrack  for  a  state  of  soldiers. 

With  the  Spartans  Croesus  had  no  difficulty  in  con 
eluding  an  alliance,  as  the  path  of  friendship  had 

*  If  he  liad  also  been  accompanied  by  the  owl  of  that  goddess, 
the  case  would  have  been  very  like  one  which  occurred  in  the 
remembrance  of  this  generation,  when  a  fugitive  prince  landed 
in  France  with  a  tame  eagle  on  his  shoulder 


20 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


"been  paved  by  a  previous  interchange  of  gifts  and 
civilities ;  they  had  also  heard  of  the  Delphic  pro¬ 
phecies.  He  immediately  proceeded  to  commence  a 
campaign  against  the  Persians  by  marching  into  Cap¬ 
padocia.  A  sensible  Lydian  made  one  last  effort  to 
dissuade  him.  “  0  king,”  said  he,  “  thou  art  about 
to  march  against  men  who  have  trousers  of  leather, 
and  all  the  rest  of  their  dress  of  leather,  and  they 
feed  not  on  what  they  would  like  but  on  what  they 
have  ;  for  their  land  is  rough.  Hay  more,  they  are 
unacquainted  with  wine,  being  water-drinkers,  and 
they  have  no  figs  to  eat,  nor  anything  else  that  is  good. 
If  thou  conquerest  them,  thou  canst  get  nothing  from 
them,  for  they  have  nothing  to  lose  ;  if  thou  dost  not, 
thou  wilt  lose  all  thine  own  good  things.  There  will 
he  no  thrusting  them  hack  when  once  they  have  had 
a  taste  of  what  we  enjoy ;  nay,  I  thank  the  gods  that 
they  do  not  put  it  into  the  mind  of  the  Persians 
to  march  against  the  Lydians.” 

In  undertaking  this  war,  Croesus  was  prompted  partly 
by  ambition,  partly  by  his  desire  to  punish  Cyrus  for 
dethroning  Astyages,  the  king  of  Media,  who  was  his 
brother-in-law.  Crossing  the  river  Halys,*  the  northern 
boundary,  he  advanced  to  the  country  near  Sinope,  on 
the  Black  Sea — in  modern  times  notorious  as  the  scene 
of  the  destruction  of  the  Turkish  fleet  by  the  Kussians. 
Here  Cyrus  marched  out  to  meet  him.  A  battle  took 
place  in  which  both  sides  claimed  the  victory.  Croesus, 
however,  thinking  his  numbers  too  small  for  ultimate 
success,  determined  to  fall  back  on  Sardis,  and  begin 
the  war  again  after  the  winter  with  larger  forces.  He 
sent  round  to  his  allies  to  tell  them  to  join  him  in  four 

*  Now  the  Kizil  Irinak. 


C IKES  US. 


'Al 

montlis’  time.  But  liis  long  course  of  prosperity  was 
drawing  to  its  close.  Cyrus  had  not  been  so  crippled 
by  the  battle  but  that  he  could  march  straight  to  Sar¬ 
dis  and  so  “bring  the  news  of  his  own  arrival.”  Croe¬ 
sus,  though  surprised,  led  out  the  Lydians  to  meet  him. 
They  were  at  this  time  as  good  men  of  war  as  any  in 
Asia.  They  fought,  like  the  knights  of  chivalry,  on  . 
horseback,  with  long  lances  ;  and  the  plain  before  Sar¬ 
dis  was  the  bettle-field  of  their  predilection.  But  Cyrus 
invented  a  device  to  paralyse  this  cavalry.  Taking 
advantage  of  a  horse’s  natural  fear  of  camels,  he  or¬ 
ganised  a  camel  brigade  and  placed  it  in  his  front,  with 
infantry  behind  it,  and  his  own  cavalry  in  the  rear. 
Though  the  Lydian  knights,  like  the  Austrians  at  Sem- 
pacli,  dismounted  and  fought  on  foot,  the  battle  went 
against  them,  and  Croesus  soon  found  himself  besieged 
in  his  capital.  Then  he  sent  messengers  to  his  allies 
urging  them  to  help  him  with  all  speed. 

The  Spartans,  even  had  they  been  able  to  reach 
Sardis  in  time,  could  not  set  out  at  once,  as  they  hap¬ 
pened  just  then  to  have  their  hands  full.  They 
were  fighting  with  the  men  of  Argos  about  a  tract 
of  borderland  called  Thyrea.  Argos  had  been  in  the 
old  Homeric  times  the  head  of  the  Peloponnesus, 
and  was  always  very  jealous  of  Spartan  supremacy. 
The  plausible  plan  had  been  adopted  of  fighting  out 
this  particular  quarrel  by  three  hundred  chosen  men 
on  each  side ;  though  three  on  each  side,  as  in  the 
affair  of  the  Horatii  and  Curiatii  between  Pome  and 
Alba,  might  have  answered  the  purpose  quite  as  well. 
The  combat  proved  as  deadly  as  that  between  the 
rival  Highland  clans  recorded  by  Scott  in  his  ‘  Fair 
Maid  of  Perth.’  Two  only  of  the  Argives  were  left, 


09 

—  U 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


who  ran  home  with  the  news  of  the  victory ;  while  a 
single  Spartan,  raising  himself  up  from  amongst  a 
heap  of  dead,  remained  in  possession  of  the  field  and 
set  up  a  trophy.  So  the  result  was  considered  indeci¬ 
sive,  and  the  main  armies  fell  to  fighting,  and  the 
Spartans  conquered.  Then  the  Argives  shore  their 
hair,  which  they  formerlv  wore  long,  and  bound  them¬ 
selves  under  a  curse  noc  to  let  it  grow  again  till  they 
had  recovered  Thvrea,  and  forbade  their  women  to 
wear  gold  ornaments — a  prohibition  probably  more 
difficult  to  enforce.  The  Spartans,  in  retaliation,  made 
a  contrary  vow,  to  let  their  hair  grow,  having  worn  it 
cropped  before.  The  survivor  of  their  three  hundred 
was  said  to  have  slain  himself  for  shame. 

In  the  mean  time  Croesus  was  a  lost  man.  The  citadel 
of  Sardis  had  been  scaled  by  the  Persians  at  a  point  where 
a  king  of  old  had  omitted  to  carry  round  a  lion,  which 
was  to  operate  as  a  charm  to  prevent  its  being  taken. 
It  has  been  mentioned  that  Croesus  had  a  son  wrho  was 
deaf  and  dumb.  His  father  had  tried  in  vain  all  means 
to  cure  him  of  his  affliction,  and  given  up  the  attempt- 
in  despair.  But  now,  wfflen  Sardis  was  taken,  a  soldier 
approached  Croesus,  not  knowing  wrho  he  was*  to  slay 
him ;  and  Croesus,  in  his  deep  grief,  did  not  care  to 
hinder  him,  which  he  might  have  done  by  giving  his 
name,  since  Cyrus  had  issued  express  orders  to  his 
army  that  the  king  of  Lydia  wras  to  be  taken  alive. 
Then  suddenly  the  tongue  of  the  youth  was  loosed, 
and  when  he  saw  the  Persian  approaching,  he  cried 
out — “  Fellow,  do  not  kill  Croesus!”  and  having  made 
this  beginning,  he  continued  able  to  speak  for  the  rest 
of  his  life.  Thus  Croesus  wras  taken  prisoner,  after  a 
reign  of  fourteen  years,  and  Cyrus,  in  the  cruel  spirit  ol 


u it  at. i  us. 


_  j 

the  age,  placed  him  on  a  pile  of  wood,  with  the  inten¬ 
tion  of  burning  him  alive.  Then  Croesus  bethought 
him  of  the  wTise  words  of  Solon,  how  r.o  man  should  be 
accounted  happy  until  the  end,  and  in  his  anguish 
called  aloud  thrice  upon  Solon’s  name.  Cyrus  asked  the 
meaning  of  the  cry,  and  when  he  heard  the  story,  was 
so  touched  that  he  ordered  the  pile,  which  was  already 
lighted,  to  be  put  out.  But  this  could  not  be  done 
by  all  their  exertions  until  Croesus  prayed  to  Apollo  for 
aid,  when  suddenly  a  great  storm  of  rain  came  on  and 
extinguished  the  fire. 

Cyrus  treated  his  royal  prisoner  with  all  honour. 
When  the  Persian  soldiers  began  to  plunder  Sardis, 
Croesus  inquired  of  his  conqueror  what  they  were  doing. 
“  Spoiling  thy  goods,  0  Croesus.”  “  Kay,  not  mine,” 
replied  the  fallen  monarch,  “  but  thine,  0  Cyrus.” 
Then  Cyrus  stopped  the  sack  of  the  city,  and  in  grati¬ 
tude  for  the  suggestion  of  Croesus,  begged  him  to  name 
any  favour  he  could  do  him.  “  My  lord,”  said  he, 
“  suffer  me  to  send  these  chains  to  the  god  at  Delphi, 
and  to  ask  if  this  is  how  lie  requites  his  benefactors, 
and  whether  ingratitude  is  an  attribute  of  Greek  gods  in 
general  1  ”  For  Croesus  had  loaded  the  shrine  of  Apollo 
with  costly  presents.  The  message  was  sent,  and  the 
priestess  of  the  oracle  made  this  reply  :  “  Croesus  atones 
for  his  forefather  Gyges,  who  slew  Candaules  his  mas¬ 
ter.  Apollo  desired  that  the  judgment  should  fall  on 
the  son  of  Croesus  and  not  on  himself,  but  the  gods 
themselves  cannot  avert  fate.  The  god  did  what  he 
could,  for  he  deferred  the  fall  of  Sardis  three  years 
beyond  the  destined  time  :  secondly,  he  put  out  the 
fire,  and  prevented  Croesus  being  burnt  alive  :  thirdly, 
he  did  not  give  a  lying  oracle,  for  he  only  said  that 


24 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS . 


Croesus  should  destroy  a  great  empire,  without  saying 
what  empire  it  should  he.  Croesus  had  no  right  to 
interpret  his  words  according  to  his  own  wish.  As  to 
the  oracle  about  the  mule,  he  might  have  known  that 
Cyrus  was  a  Persian  by  his  father’s  side  and  a  Mede 
by  his  mother’s,  and  so  a  hybrid  king.”  Croesus  was 
obliged  to  acquiesce  in  the  explanation,  and  to  take 
his  fate  patiently.  His  ruin  was,  indeed,  no  common 
bankruptcy.  “  As  rich  as  Croesus  ”  soon  grew  into  a 
vernacular  proverb.  Yet  he  was  by  no  means  a  bad 
specimen  of  the  millionaire.  His  gentleness  and  good¬ 
nature  were  as  proverbial  as  his  wealth,  and  Pindar, 
the  Theban  poet,  testifies  to  this  point — doubtless  for 
substantial  reasons  of  his  own  — 

“  Of  kindly  Croesus  and  his  worth 
The  name  doth  never  fade.” 

The  strange  vicissitudes  of  his  life  became  a  fertile 
subject  for  Greek  romancers  and  moralists.  His  riches 
seem  to  have  been  derived  partly  from  the  grains  of 
gold  brought  down  in  the  sand  of  the  river  Pactolus, 
which  made  Asia  Minor  the  California  of  antiquity. 
This  was  doubtless  the  origin  of  the  fable  of  the 
Phrygian  king  Midas  turning  all  that  he  touched  to 
gold.  It  seems  that  Sardis  in  early  times  was  an 
important  place  of  trade,  as  Herodotus  says  that  the 
Lydians  were  the  first  coiners  of  money  and  the  first 
storekeepers,  so  far  as  was  known.  It  was  at  the  same 
time  notorious  as  the  great  slave-market  of  the  world 


CHAPTER  It 


CYRUS. 

i 

“  Not  vainly  did  the  early  Persian  make 
n  is  altar  the  high  places,  and  the  peak 
Of  earth-o’ergazing  mountains,  and  thus  take 
A  fit  and  unwalled  temple,  there  to  seek 
The  Spirit,  in  whose  honour  shrines  are  weak 
Upreared  of  human  hands.” 

—Byron,  “Childe  Harold.  * 

Before  the  Medes  or  Persians  made  their  appearance 
in  history,  the  Assyrians,  according  to  Herodotus,  had 
ruled  over  upper  Asia  for  five  hundred  and  twenty 
years.  Asshur  appears  in  Scripture  *  as  a  son  of  Shem, 
who  went  out  from  the  land  of  Sliinar  and  founded 
Nineveh.  Herodotus  is  supposed  to  have  written  a  sepa¬ 
rate  nistory  of  Assyria,  which  has  been  lost ;  hut  Layard 
and  others  have  deciphered  for  us  a  new  history  from 
the  monuments  of  that  wonderful  empire.  The  bearded 
kings  and  warriors,  with  their  wars  and  lion-liunts 
graven  on  sandstone  slabs,  which  are  to  be  seen  in  the 
British  Museum  and  in  the  Louvre  in  Paris,  look  as 
fresh  as  if  they  had  been  sculptured  yesterday  instead 
of  nearly  three  thousand  years  ago.  The  Assyrians 
were  of  the  Semitic  race,  of  the  same  family  as  the 

*  Gen.  x.  11,  22. 


20 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


Jews  and  Arabs ;  while  the  Medes  and  Persians  were, 
in  Scriptural  phrase,  of  the  sons  of  Japheth — that  is, 
they  belonged  to  the  same  Aryan,  Iranian,  or  Indo* 
Germanic  family  as  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  and  our¬ 
selves.  The  home  of  the  Assyrians  and  their  cognate 
Babylonians  was  in  the  great  plain  of  Mesopotamia, 
while  the  Medes  lived  in  the  mountains  to  the  east, 
and  the  Persians  to  the  south-east.  The  Median  high¬ 
landers,  being  of  more  hardy  habits,  first  conquered  the 
Assyrian  lowlanders,  and  then,  descending  to  their 
softer  country  and  habits,  were  conquered  in  their  turn 
by  the  hardier  Persians.  The  decline  of  Assyria  was 
consummated  by  the  fall  of  Nineveh,  which  was  taken, 
about  b.c.  625,  by  Cyaxares,  third  king  of  the  Medes, 
in  conjunction  with  the  Babylonians.  The  first  king 
of  the  Medes  is  said  to  have  been  Deioces,  who  built 
the  wonderful  city  called  by  Herodotus  Agbatana,*  and 
less  correctly  by  later  writers  Ecbatana,  with  its  seven 
circular  walls,  one  within  the  other,  with  the  palace 
and  treasuries  in  the  centre.  The  first  wall  had  white 
battlements,  the  second  black,  the  third  scarlet,  the 
fourth  blue,  the  fifth  orange.  The  last  two  walls 
had  their  battlements  silvered  and  gilt.  They  rose 
one  above  another  on  a  conical  hill,  and  were  sup¬ 
posed  to  have  had  a  symbolic  meaning,  as  referring 
to  the  sun,  moon,  and  five  planets,  or  the  deities  pre¬ 
siding  over  the  days  of  the  week.  The  last  king  of 
the  Medes  was  Astyages,  the  son  of  Cyaxares.  He 
had  given  his  daughter  Mandane  in  marriage  to  Cam- 
1  >yses,  who  was,  according  to  our  author’s  account,  a 
poor  Persian  gentleman,  but  according  to  later  autho 
ritics,  a  descendant  of  the  first  Persian  king  Achae 
*  In  tlie  Behistuu  inscription  it  is  Hagmatana. 


CYRUS. 


27 


menes.  Astyages  dreamed  that  lie  saw  a  vine  spring 
from  the  body  of  his  daughter  Mandane,  which  over¬ 
shadowed  the  whole  of  Asia.  We  know  from  Scrip¬ 
ture  how  much  stress  the  Chaldeans  and  the  Medes 
laid  on  dreams.  Fearing  that  an  offspring  of  Mandane 
would  deprive  him  of  his  sovereignty,  Astyages  or¬ 
dered  the  son  that  was  horn  of  her  to  be  destroyed. 
The  courtier  Harpagus,  who  was  commissioned  to  do 
this,  passed  on  the  child  to  one  of  the  royal  herds¬ 
men,  that  he  might  expose  it  to  die  upon  the  moun¬ 
tains.  But  the  herdsman’s  wife,  when  she  saw 
that  it  was  “  a  proper  child,”  and  plainly  of  noble 
birth,  adorned  for  death  with  gorgeous  apparel,  took 
pity  on  the  infant,  and  as  she  had  just  lost  one 
of  her  own,  persuaded  her  husband  to  expose  the 
dead  child,  and  save  the  living  one,  that  she  might 
nurse  it.  So  the  future  Cyrus  lived,  while  the  herds¬ 
man’s  child  received  a  royal  funeral.  When  the  boy 
was  ten  years  old  he  was  playing  one  day  with  the 
children  of  his  village.  The  game  was  King  and 
Courtiers.  Cyrus  was  chosen  king,  and  assumed  the 
dignity  as  if  he  had  been  born  to  it,  appointing  officers, 
architects,  guards,  couriers,  and  an  official  called  the 
King’s  Eye,*  (possibly  the  head  of  the  detective  police). 

*  This  officer  is  introduced  in  Aristophanes’  comedy  of  ‘  The 
Acharnians.  ’  He  appears  in  a  mask  (as  in  a  modern  burlesque) 
with  a  single  huge  eye  in  the  centre.  He  is  brought  to  Athens 
bv  some  envoys  who  have  been  at  the  court  of  Persia.  Dicmo- 
polis  (an  honest  farmer  who  is  present  at  the  reception)  is  in¬ 
dignant  at  their  waste  of  time  and  the  public  money. 

“Envoy. — We’ve  brought  you  here  a  nobleman — Sham-artabas 
By  name,  by  rank  and  office  the  King’s  Eye. 

Dicceop. — God  send  a  crow  to  peck  it  out,  say  I  ! 

And  yours  th’  ambassadors’  into  the  bargain.” 

— Fkerf’s  TraneL 


28 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS . 


In  carrying  out  his  character,  Cyrus  ordered  one  ol 
the  children,  the  son  of  a  Median  of  high  rank,  to  l> 
flogged  for  disobedience.  The  angry  child  went  t< 
the  city  and  complained  to  his  father,  who  in  tun 
complained  to  the  real  king.  Astyages  ordered  th( 
despotic  urchin  to  be  brought  into  his  presence.  Tin 
abashed,  however,  the  boy  justified  himself;  and  this 
circumstance,  together  with  a  strong  family  resem¬ 
blance,  led  to  his  recognition  by  the  grandfather,  who 
came  at  the  truth  by  examining  the  herdsman  andHarpa- 
gus.  He  now  dissembled  his  wrath,  pretended  that  he 
was  glad  the  child  had  been  saved,  and  invited  Harpagus 
to  send  his  son  to  be  the  companion  of  the  young  prince, 
and  to  come  himself  to  dinner.  After  Harpagus  had 
well  feasted,  Astyages  asked  him  how  he  liked  his 
entertainment ;  he  said  it  was  excellent.  Upon  this, 
a  basket  was  shown  to  him  containing  the  head, 
hands,  and  feet  of  his  own  son,  on  whose  flesh  he 
had  been  feasting.  The  father,  with  the  dissimulation 
natural  to  the  subjects  of  an  Oriental  despotism, 
observed  that  whatsoever  the  king  did  was  right  in 
his  eyes.  It  is  the  very  answer  which  the  son  of 
Ethelwold  is  said  by  William  of  Malmesbury  to 
have  made  when  King  Edgar  showed  him  his  father’s 
corpse,  slain  by  him  in  the  royal  forest ;  the 
English  chronicler  having  evidently  borrowed  from 
Herodotus. 

Astyages  now  consulted  the  Magi  (a  caste  of  priests 
of  whom  we  shall  hear  more  hereafter)  as  to  what 
was  to  be  done.  They  said  that  they  considered  that 
Cyrus  had  ceased  to  be  dangerous,  since  he  had  been 
king  already  in  the  children’s  play.  So  Astyages  sent 
him  away  into  Persia,  to  his  real  parents.  Meanwhile 


cm  us. 


29 


Harpagus  r  arsed  his  revenge,  till  Cyrus  was  grown  to 
man’s  estate,  and  then  he  felt  his  time  was  come.  He 
sent  a  letter  to  the  noble  youth  sewn  up  in  the  belly 
of  a  hare,  bidding  him  put  himself  at  once  at  the  head 
of  the  Persians,  and  revolt  from  Astyages.  This  king 
— surely  under  some  infatuation  from  heaven,  says  the 
historian — forgetting  the  deadly  wrong  which  he  had 
done  Harpagus,  sent  him  to  suppress  the  revolt.  He 
deserted  to  Cyrus,  and  the  Medes  were  easily  defeated. 
Thus  Cyrus  destroyed  the  great  Median  empire,  and 
substituted  that  of  the  Persians — becoming,  after  the 
downfall  of  Croesus,  master  of  all  Asia.  He  treated 
his  grandfather  Astyages  with  all  honour  to  the  day 
of  his  death. 

There  was  a  religious  as  well  as  a  political  dis- 
sidence  between  the  two  nations.  They  both  wor¬ 
shipped  the  elements  and  “all  the  host  of  heaven,” 
and  planetary  deities ;  but  the  Persian  national  creed 
recognised  both  a  good  and  an  evil  principle  in  nature,, 
constantly  at  war,  whom  they  called  Ormuzd  and  Aliri- 
man.  The  Persians,  according  to  Herodotus,  eschewed 
images,  temples,  and  altars,  and  sacrificed  to  the  ele¬ 
mental  deity  on  the  tops  of  mountains.  But  lie  has 
evidently  confused  the  Median  worship  with  theirs. 
Their  habits  much  resembled  those  of  the  old  Ger- 
mans,  as  described  by  Tacitus.  They  were  originally 
a  simple  people,  and  compulsory  education  with  them 
was  limited  to  teaching  their  sons  “  to  ride,  to  draw  the 
bow,  and  speak  the  truth.”  Hext  after  lying,  they 
counted  running  in  debt  most  disgraceful,  since  “  he 
who  is  in  debt  must  needs  lie.”  Lepers  were  banished 
from  society,  as  they  were  supposed  to  •  have  sinned 
against  the  sun;  even  white  pigeons  being  put  under 


30 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS . 


taboo  ”  for  a  similar  reason.*  They  were  very  much 
given  to  wine  ;t  and  discussed  every  subject  of  import¬ 
ance  twice — first  when  they  were  drunk,  and  again 
when  they  were  sober.  As  water  was  a  sacred  ele¬ 
ment,  none  might  defile  a  river — a  sanitary  regula¬ 
tion  in  which  we  moderns  would  do  well  to  follow 
them.  The  bodies  of  the  dead  presented  a  difficulty. 
They  might  not  be  buried,  for  the  earth  was  sacred ;  or 
thrown  into  rivers,  for  water  was  sacred  ;  or  burnt,  for 
fire  was  sacred.  They  were  therefore  exposed  to  be 
torn  by  birds  and  beasts  —  a  fate  of  which  the  Greeks 
had  the  greatest  horror.  The  Parsees  of  India,  ami 
the  native  Australians,  dispose  of  their  dead  in  much 
the  same  way.  As  a  compromise,  adopted  from  the 
Magi,  a  body  might  be  buried  when  covered  with  wax 
to  prevent  its  contact  with  the  earth. 

The  Persians,  when  they  had  conquered  the  Medes, 
soon  degenerated  from  their  earlier  simplicity,  which 
is  celebrated  by  Xenophon  in  his  romance  of  the 
‘  Education  of  Cyrus.’ 

When  Cyrus,  by  the  defeat  of  Croesus,  had  made 
himself  master  of  Lydia,  the  Greek  colonists  on  the 
Asiatic  seaboard  sent  to  him  in  alarm,  and  begged  to 
be  allowed  to  be  his  vassals  on  the  same  terms  as  they 
had  been  to  Croesus.  He  answered  them  by  a  scornful 
parable  :  “  There  was  a  certain  piper  who  piped  on  the 

*  So  to  this  day,  in  India,  all  white  animals  are  looked  upon 
much  in  the  wav  in  which  we  ourselves  regard  albinoes — a  kind 
of  unhealthy  lusus  naturae . 

+  Their  successors  retain  the  taste.  “  It  is  quite  appalling,” 
says  Sir  H.  Rawlinson,  “  to  see  the  quantity  of  liquor  which 
some  of  these  topers  habitually  consume,  and  they  usually  pre¬ 
fer  spirits  to  wine.” 


CYRUS. 


31 


sea-shore  for  the  fish  to  come  out,  hut  they  came  not. 
Then  he  took  a  net  and  hauled  out  a  great  draught 
of  them.  The  fish,  in  their  agonies,  began  to  caper. 
But  he  said,  ‘  Cease  to  dance  now,  since  ye  would  not 
dance  when  I  piped  to  you.’  ”*  This  answer  drove  the 
Ionian  Greeks  to  fortify  their  towns  and  send  ambas¬ 
sadors  to  Sparta  for  assistance.  Their  envoy,  however, 
disgusted  the  Spartans  by  wearing  a  purple  robe  and 
making  a  long  speech — two  things  which  they  de¬ 
tested  ;  and  they  voted  not  to  send  the  succours,  but 
despatched  a  fifty-oared  ship  to  watch  the  proceedings 
of  Cyrus.  When  this  vessel  reached  the  port  of  Phoctea, 
a  herald  was  sent  on  to  Sardis  to  warn  Cyrus  from  the 
Spartans  not  to  hurt  any  Greek  city  on  pain  of  their  dis¬ 
pleasure.  This  caused  Cyrus  to  inquire  who  these  Spar¬ 
tans  were,  and  how  many  in  numbers,  that  they  dared  to 
send  him  such  a  message.  When  he  was  informed  he  said, 
“  I  am  not  afraid  of  people  who  have  a  place  in  their 
city  where  they  meet  to  cheat  each  other  and  forswear 
themselves  ”  (meaning  the  agora  or  market-place);  “  and 
if  I  live,  the  Spartans  shall  have  troubles  enough  of  their 
own,  without  troubling  themselves  about  the  Ionians.” 

Cyrus  had  other  business  on  his  hands  at  present 
than  to  punish  the  Greeks ;  he  therefore  went  back  to 
Ecbatana,  leaving  a  strong  garrison  in  Sardis.  But 
while  he  was  on  his  way  he  heard  that  one  Pactyas 
had  induced  the  Sardians  to  revolt,  and  was  besieging 
the  garrison  in  the  citadel.  Troops  were  sent  to  put 
down  the  revolt;  Pactyas,  however,  did  not  vrait  for  tlieii 
arrival,  but  fled  to  Cyme,  on  which  the  Persian  general 
demanded  his  extradition.  The  m(  n  of  Cyme  sent  to 

*  This  Eastern  apologue  may  serve  as  an  illustration  of  the 
parable  in  Matt.  xi.  16. 


32 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


ask  advice  at  a  neighbouring  oracle  of  Apollo,  and  the 
answer  came  that  Pactyas  was  to  be  given  up.  Some 
of  the  citizens,  not  satisfied  with  this  answer,  thought 
the  envoys  must  have  made  a  mistake,  and  sent  again 
to  remonstrate  with  the  god,  but  the  answer  was 
repeated  ;  whereupon  Aristodicus,  the  principal  envoy, 
went  round  the  temple  and  cleared  away  all  the 
nests  of  sparrows  and  other  birds  that  he  found  there. 
While  he  was  thus  engaged,  a  voice  came  from  the 
sanctuary, — “  Unholy  man,  darest  thou  to  tear  my  sup¬ 
pliants  from  my  temple  ?  ”  on  which  Aristodicus,  by  no 
means  abashed,  replied, — “  0  king,  thou  canst  protect 
thine  own  suppliants,  and  yet  thou  orderest  the  Cym- 
seans  to  surrender  theirs.”  “  I  do,”  answered  the  god, 
“  that  you  may  the  sooner  perish ;  for  it  was  in  the 
naughtiness  of  your  hearts  that  you  came  to  consult  me 
on  such  a  matter.”  *  Eventually  they  sent  Pactyas  to 
Chios  for  safety  ;  but  the  Chians  gave  him  up  to  the 
Persians,  even  tearing  him  from  the  temple  of  Minerva  ; 
and  Atarneus,  a  district  opposite  Lesbos,  was  paid  them 
as  the  price  of  blood.  Put  there  was  a  curse  on  the 
produce  of  Atarneus  for  ever. 

The  Persians  now  proceeded  to  punish  the  revolted 
Lydians  and  Ionians,  and  Harpagus,  the  king-maker, 
who  had  deposed  Astyages,  forthwith  beleaguered 
Phocsea.  The  inhabitants  of  this  city,  however,  pre¬ 
ferred  exile  to  slavery ;  taking  an  oath  never  to 

*  The  remarkable  answer  attributed  here  to  the  oracle  may 
Berve  to  illustrate  the  permission  given  to  Balaam  to  go  with  the 
messengers  of  Balak.  Even  to  the  heathen  mind,  there  were 
questions  of  conscience  so  clear,  that  to  consult  heaven  specially 
in  the  mattei  was  a  mockery  [See  the  almost  parallel  case  of 
Glaucus,  ch.  viii  ] 


C\  7?  PS. 


3o 


return  until  a  bar  of  iron,  which  they  sank  in  the  sea, 
should  rise  and  float,  they  set  sail,  and,  after  a  multi¬ 
tude  of  adventures,  found  a  resting-place  on  the  coast 
of  Italy. 

Most  of  the  other  towns  on  the  coast  were  subdued 
after  a  gallant  resistance,  and  the  islanders  gave  them¬ 
selves  up.  Then  Harpagus  turned  inland  against  the 
Carians  and  Lycians.  The  Carians  deserve  notice  as 
the  reputed  inventors  of  crests  to  helmets,  and  of  heraldic 
devices.  The  Lycians  were  early  advocates  of  the  rights 
of  women ;  naming  men  not  after  their  fathers,  as 
was  usual,  but  after  their  mothers.  The  Lycians  of 
Xanthus  *  made  a  desperate  resistance.  Finding  they 
could  not  beat  the  Persians  in  the  field,  they  made  a 
great  pile  on  which  they  burnt  their  wives  and  chil¬ 
dren,  and  all  their  valuables,  and  then  sallied  out  and 
perished  in  battle  to  a  man.  Their  example  was  imi¬ 
tated  by  Saguntum  in  Spain  in  the  second  Punic  war. 

While  Harpagus  was  thus  subduing  the  coast,  Cyrus 
was  pursuing  his  conquests  in  Upper  Asia.  .  He  turned 
his  arms  against  Labynetus,  king  of  Babylon.  This 
renowned  city,  says  our  historian,  formed  a  vast  square 
fifty-five  miles  in  circuit.  Its  double  walls  were  340 
feet  high  (nearly  as  high  as  St  Vincent’s  rock  at  Bristol) 
and  85  feet  thick.  The  measurements  seem  enor¬ 
mous,  yet  the  great  wall  of  China  shows  such  works 
to  be  possible,  when  absolute  power  commands  un¬ 
limited  labour.  The  city  itself  was  cut  in  two  by  the 
river  Euphrates,  the  quays  being  fenced  by  walls  with 

*  About  thirty  years  ago  the  British  Museum  was  enriched 
by  some  beautiful  marbles  brought  from  Xanthus  by  an  expe¬ 
dition  which  explored  Lycia  under  the  conduct  of  Sir  Charles 
Fellowes. 

a.  c.  vol.  iiu 


o 


34 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS 


water-gates  for  communication.  One  half  contained 
the  king’s  palace,  the  other  the  great  sacred  tower  ol 
Belus  (Bel  or  Baal)  ivith  its  external  winding  ascent. 
Babylon  was  in  fact  a  fortified  province  rather  than 
a  city  ;  it  resembled  Jeddo  in  Japan,  in  being  a  collec¬ 
tion  of  country  houses  with  small  farms  and  gardens 
attached.  It  seems  to  have  been  the  ideal  of  what  a 
great  city  ought  to  be,  especially  in  days  of  internal 
railroads.  London,  containing  its  millions,  with  its 
thin  houses  laterally  squeezed  together,  or  Paris,  with 
its  horizontal  piles  of  flats,  and  no  corresponding 
spaces,  would  have  excited  the  horror  of  the  an¬ 
cients,  who  in  some  respects  were  more  civilised  than 
ourselves.  Herodotus  attributes  the  great  engineering 
works  about  Babylon,  to  prevent  the  Euphrates  from 
overflowing  the  country,  chiefly  to  two  queens,  Semira- 
mis*  and  Hitocris,  between  whom  he  places  an  interval 
of  five  generations.  Of  this  latter  he  relates  a  striking 
anecdote.  ■ 

“  She  built  for  herself  a  tomb  above  the  most  fre¬ 
quented  gateway  of  the  city,  exactly  over  the  gates, 
and  engraved  on  it  the  following  inscription  :  ‘  If  any 
of  the  kings  of  Babylon  who  come  after  me  shall  be  in 
need  of  money,  let  him  open  my  tomb  and  take  there¬ 
from  as  much  as  he  will ;  but  unless  he  is  in  need,  let 
him  not  open  it,  else  will  it  be  worse  for  him.’  How 
this  tomb  remained  undisturbed  until  the  kingdom  fell 
to  Darius.  But  he  thought  it  absurd  that  this  gateway 
should  be  made  no  use  of — for  it  was  not  used,  because 
one  would  have  had  to  pass  under  the  dead  body  as  one 

*  This  queen  appears  to  have  really  reigned  in  conjunction 
with  her  husband.  She  is  probably  not  the  great  queen  known 
by  the  same  name. 


c  me,  s. 


35 


went  out — and  that  when  money  was  lying  there  idle, 
and  calling  out  for  some  one  to  take  it,  he  should  not 
lay  his  hand  on  it.  So  he  opened  the  tomb  and  found 
no  money  at  all,  but  only  the  dead  body,  and  these 
words  written — ‘  If  thou  wert  not  the  greediest  of  men, 
and  shameless  -in  thy  greed,  thou  wouldst  not  have 
disturbed  the  resting-place  of  the  dead.’  ” 

Although  the  author  notices  most  of  the  wonders  of 
Babylon,  he  makes  no  mention  of  the  hanging-gardens, 
which  excited  the  astonishment  of  later  writers.  Nebu¬ 
chadnezzar  is  said  to  have  constructed  them  out  of  affec¬ 
tion  for  a  Median  wife,  that  she  might  not  be  afflicted 
with  a  Swiss  longing  for  her  native  mountain  scenery.'* 

Having  defeated  the  Babylonians  in  battle,  Cyrus 
drove  them  inside  their  huge  walls.  There  they 
laughed  at  his  efforts,  having  good  store  of  provisions 
for  many  years.  But  their  enemy  proved  himself  as 
good  an  engineer  as  any  of  their  queens,  historical  or 
fabulous.  Taking  advantage  of  reservoirs  previously 
existing,  he  turned  off  by  a  canal  the  waters  of  the 
Euphrates,  and  the  Persians  walked  into  the  city  dry- 
shod  by  the  bed  of  the  river,  even  the  water-gates 
having  been  left  open  by  incomprehensible  careless¬ 
ness.  Those  who  were  in  the  centre  of  the  city,  say° 
Herodotus,  were  still  feasting,  dancing,  and  revelling, 
after  the  Persians  had  entered.  It  is  the  night  de¬ 
scribed  in  the  Book  of  Daniel,  when  the  terrible 
“handwriting”  was  seen  upon  the  wall.t 

The  Babylonians  were  a  luxurious  people.  Their 

*  So  a  great  fox-hunter,  who  could  not  find  it  in  his  heart  to 
leave  England,  is  said  to  have  turned  his  conservatory  into  a 
little  Italy  for  his  delicate  wife. 

+  The  names  of  the  Eastern  kings  are  so  variously  given. 


36 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


full  dress  was  a  long  linen  tunic,  with,  a  woollen  robe 
over  it,  and  a  short  white  cloak  or  cape  over  the 
shoulder.  Though  they  wore  their  hair  long,  they 
swathed  their  heads  in  turbans,  and  perfumed  them¬ 
selves  all  over.  Each  citizen  carried  his  walking- 
staff,  carved  at  the  top  with  the  likeness  of  some 
natural  object — such  as  an  apple,  a  rose,  a  lily,  or  an 
eagle — and  had  also  his  private  signet.  Of  these  seals 
(which  are  hollow  cylinders)  great  numbers  have  been 
found  during  the  late  explorations,  and  brought  to 
Europe.* 

Herodotus  records  one  of  their  customs,  which,  whe¬ 
ther  in  jest  or  earnest,  he  declares  to  he  the  wisest  he 
ever  heard  of.  This  was  their  wife-auction,  by  which 
they  managed  to  find  husbands  for  all  tlieir  young 
women.  The  greatest  beauty  was  put  up  first,  and 
knocked  down  to  the  highest  bidder ;  then  the  next  in 
the  order  of  comeliness — and  so  on  to  the  damsel  who 
was  equidistant  between  beauty  and  plainness,  who  was 
given  away  gratis.  Then  the  least  plain  was  put  up,  and 
knocked  down  to  the  gallant  who  would  marry  her  for 
the  smallest  consideration, — and  so  on  till  even  the  plain¬ 
est  was  got  rid  of  to  some  cynical  worthy  who  decidedly 

that  it  is  almost  impossible  to  identify  them  either  in  sacred  or 
profane  history.  The  Labynetus  of  Herodotus  is  Nabonidus, 
or  Nabonadius,  in  other  writers.  The  “Belshazzar”  whom 
Daniel  calls  “king”  was  probably  his  son,  associated  with 
him  in  the  government.  His  name  appears  in  inscriptions  as 
Bilshar-uzur.  We  know  from  other  authorities  that  Labynetus 
himself  was  not  in  the  city  at  its  capture. — See  Rawlinson’s 
Herodotus,  i.  524,  &c. 

*  They  are  commonly  of  some  composition,  but  occasionally 
have  been  found  in  amethyst,  cornelian,  agate,  &c. — Bayard’s 
Nineveh  and  Babylon,  602,  &c. 


CYRUS. 


37 


preferred  lucre  to  looks.  By  transferring  to  the  scale  of 
the  ill-favoured  the  prices  paid  for  the  fair,  beauty  was 
made  to  endow  ugliness,  and  the  rich  man’s  taste  was 
the  poor  man’s  gain.  The  Babylonian  marriage-market 
might  perhaps  be  advantageously  adopted  in  some  mo¬ 
dern  countries  where  marriage  is  still  made  a  commercial 
matter.  It  at  least  possesses  the  merit  of  honesty  and 
openness,  and  tends  to  a  fair  distribution  of  the  gifts  of 
fortune. 

Another  Babylonian  custom,  of  which  Herodotus 
strongly  approves,  was  that  of  employing  no  profes¬ 
sional  physicians,  but  placing  the  sick  in  the  gate  of 
the  city,  that  they  might  get  advice  respecting  the 
treatment  of  their  diseases  from  every  passer-by,  and 
thus  profit  by  the  experience  of  those  who  had  been 
afflicted  in  the  same  way  as  themselves.  Whatever 
may  be  thought  of  the  absence  of  regular  practitioners, 
the  alternative  would  certainly  seem  one  of  the  excep¬ 
tional  cases  where  wisdom  is  not  found  in  a  multitude 
of  counsellors. 

Having  annexed  this  great  and  rich  province  to  his 
dominions,  Cyrus  seems  to  have  been  intoxicated  with 
success,  or,  in  our  author’s  view,  to  have  filled  up  the 
measure  of  his  prosperity,  which  now  began  to  run  over 
in  insolent  self-confidence.  He  made  an  expedition 
against  the  Massagetse  or  Greater  Goths,  who  lived  in 
the  steppes  near  the  Caspian  Sea,  and  were  ruled  by 
an  Amazonian  widow  named  Tomyris.  While  en¬ 
camping  against  her,  Cyrus  dreamed  that  Darius, 
the  son  of  Hystaspes,  a  young  noble  of  the  royal 
house  of  Persia,  appeared  to  him  with  wings  on  his 
shoulders  (like  some  of  the  Assyrian  gods  whose  figures 
l*e  must  have  seen),  with  one  of  which  he  overshadowed 


58 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


Asia  and  the  other  Europe.  This  portended  liis  fall, 
and  the  ultimate  accession  of  Darius.  At  first  he 
gained  a  partial  advantage  by  the  stratagem  of  leaving 
a  camp  stored  with  wine  to  he  plundered  by  the 
water  -  drinking  Massagetae,  and  then  returning  and 
massacring  them  in  their  sleep.  This  was  the  shrewd 
advice  of  Croesus  the  Lydian,  whom  Cyrus  had  taken 
with  him  on  the  expedition.  Among  the  prisoners 
taken  was  the  son  of  the  Massagetan  queen.  Cyrus 
released  him  from  his  bonds  at  his  own  request ;  but 
the  youth,  unable  to  bear  his  disgrace,  only  took  advan¬ 
tage  of  his  liberty  to  kill  himself.  At  length  the 
invaders  were  forced  to  a  general  action — the  fiercest, 
says  Herodotus,  ever  fought  between  barbarian  armies. 
The  Persians  were  completely  defeated,  and  Cyrus 
himself  was  slain,  after  a  reign  of  twenty-nine  years. 
Queen  Tomyris,  exasperated  by  the  treacherous 
slaughter  of  her  army  and  the  death  of  her  son,  had 
threatened  to  give  the  bloodthirsty  invader  his  fill  of 
blood  ;  she  kept  her  word  by  filling  a  skin  with  it, 
and  plunging  into  it  his  severed  head. 

Such  is  the  account  which  Herodotus  gives  of  the 
death  of  the  great  Eastern  conqueror,  so  famous  both 
in  sacred  and  profane  history.  He  confesses  that  he 
has  only  chosen  one  legend  out  of  many.  There  is 
little  doubt,  however,  that  he  died  in  battle.  But  the 
Persian  poets  assigned  a  very  different  fate  to  their 
national  hero,  Kai  Khusru,  as  his  name  stands  in  their 
language.  They  will  not  allow  that  he  died  at  all. 
When  he  grew  old,  they  say,  he  one  day  took  leave  of 
his  attendants  on  the  banks  of  a  pleasant  stream,  and 
was  seen  no  more.  But,  as  in  the  case  of  Arthur  and 
Barbarossa,  and  all  the  great  favourites  of  a  nation, 


Cl  It U 3. 


39 


they  looked  forward  to  liis  coming  again,  more  power¬ 
ful  and  glorious  than  ever. 

These  Massagetae,  says  our  author,  resembled  the 
Scythians,  but  could  fight  on  foot  as  well  as  on 
horseback,  their  favourite  weapon  being,  as  with  the 
Anglo-Saxons,  a  battle-axe  or  bill.  They  had  the 
peculiar  custom  of  sacrificing  their  old  people,  and 
then  feasting  on  them,  and  natural  death  was  con¬ 
sidered  a  misfortune.  This  curious  people,  whose 
descendants  may  be  now  in  northern  or  western  Eu¬ 
rope,  knew  nothing  of  tillage,  and  lived  on  flesh,  fish, 
and  milk.  Their  only  deity,  known  to  Herodotus, 
was  the  Sun.  To  him  they  sacrificed  the  horse,  with 
the  notion  that  it  was  right  to  bestow  the  swiftest 
of  creatures  on  the  swiftest  of  gods.  The  Persians 
also  attached  a  certain  sanctity  to  some  breeds  of 
horses,  and  the  Teutonic  conquerors  of  Britain  bore  a 
horse  as  their  cognisance.  Some  say  that  Hengist  and 
Horsa  were  not  names  of  men,  but  only  represented  a 
people  using  this  national  symbol.  This  rude  heraldry 
of  our  northern  ancestors — or  conquerors — may  still 
be  traced  in  the  “White  Horse  ”  cut  out  on  the  chalk- 
hills  in  more  than  one  place  on  our  Berkshire  and 
Wiltshire  downs. 


CHAPTER  III 


EGYPT. 


u  In  the  afternoon  they  came  unto  a  land 
In  which  it  seemed  always  afternoon.” 

— Tennyson,  “  Lotos-Eaters.” 

Op  all  the  nine  boohs  of  Herodotus,  the  second,  which 
hears  the  name  of  the  Muse  “  Euterpe,”  is  incomparably 
the  one  of  deepest  interest  to  the  modern  reader,  as 
giving  glimpses,  such  as  are  found  nowhere  else  but  in 
Scripture,  of  the  infancy  of  the  human  race,  and  as 
propounding  important  scientific  problems,  which  can, 
if  ever,  only  find  their  solution  in  remote  futurity. 
It  is,  moreover,  the  portion  of  his  work  which  is  most 
strongly  stamped  with  the  characteristics  of  the  author’s 
personality.  It  must  ever  be  borne  in  mind  that  Herod¬ 
otus  is  not  a  historian  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  term. 
He  is  the  representative  writer  of  a  class  who  stand  mid¬ 
way  between  poetical  annalists  like  Homer  and  critical 
historians  like  Thucydides.  They  wrote  their  Iliads 
in  prose,  making  no  sharp  distinction  between  truth 
and  fiction.  They  did  not  yet  look  upon  the  verifica¬ 
tion  of  their  facts  as  a  duty,  but  jotted  down  all  that 
they  heard  and  saw,  an  instinctive  love  of  truth  alone 
suggesting  occasional  scepticism  as  to  very  extraordinary 


EGYPT. 


41 


marvels,  so  that  the  modern  reader  may  just  observe 
the  dawning  of  the  critical  spirit.  Predominantly  in 
his  Egypt,  Herodotus  appears  as  the  traveller  and 
archaeologist ;  nor  is  he  fairly  afloat  on  the  current  of 
history  until  he  launches  himself  into  the  narrative  of 
the  Persian  invasions  of  Greece,  of  the  circumstances 
of  which  he  had  more  immediate  knowledge — if  not 
as  an  eyewitness,  yet  from  those  who  had  themselves 
been  eyewitnesses. 

Egypt  has  been  in  all  ages  the  land  of  wonders, 
from  the  time  when  its  “magicians”  found  their  en¬ 
chantments  fail  before  the  mightier  Power  which  Avas 
with  Moses,  to  that  when  Napoleon  told  his  soldiers 
that  from  the  top  of  the  Pyramids  four  thousand 
years  looked  down  on  their  struggle  Avith  the  Mame¬ 
lukes, — and  to  our  OAvn  day,  Avhen  a  French  engineer 
repeats  the  feat  of  the  old  native  kings  and  the  Greek 
Ptolemies,  in  marrying  by  a  canal  the  Eed  Sea  to 
the  Mediterranean ;  an  achievement  Avhich  Avill  make 
the  name  of  Lesseps  immortal,  if  the  canal  can  only 
be  kept  clear  of  sand.  The  civilisation  of  Egypt  is 
older  than  time — or  at  least,  than  its  records.  Her 
kings  Avere  counted  Avholesale — not  by  individuals,  but 
by  dynasties,  of  which  there  Avere  said  to  have  been 
thirty-one,  exclusive  of  gods  and  heroes.  She  was 
the  mother  of  the  arts  to  Greece,  as  Greece  has  been 
to  us.  Her  monuments  are  nearly  as  vast  and  as 
seemingly  indestructible  as  the  everlasting  hills  them¬ 
selves,  and  the  study  of  her  mere  remnants  seems  to 
present  a  field  as  inexhaustible  as  that  of  nature.  No 
Avonder  that  Herodotus  Avillingly  lingered  in  this  in¬ 
teresting  country.  He  Avas  no  holiday  traveller,  but 
one  all  ears  and  eyes,  not  likely  to  let  any  fact  or 


42 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


object  escape  liim  through  carelessness  or  want  of 
curiosity. 

The  Egyptians  were  wont  to  boast  that  they  were 
the  oldest  people  in  the  world ;  but  our  author  says 
that  their  king  Psammetichus  once  put  this  to  the 
proof,  and  decided  against  them.  Two  infants  were 
kept  carefully  apart  from  human  society,  their  attend¬ 
ants  being  forbidden  to  utter  a  word  before  them. 
Under  these  circumstances  women  as  nurses  were 
out  of  the  question,  and  they  were  suckled  by  goats. 
[There  was  indeed  a  Greek  version  of  the  legend, 
Avliich  said  that  the  children  were  nursed  by  women — 
with  their  tongues  cut  out.]  One  day,  when  about 
two  years  old,  they  came  to  their  keeper,  stretching 
out  their  hands,  and  calling  “Bekkos!  bekkos!” 
This  being  Phrygian  for  “  bread,”  the  palm  of 
antiquity  was  adjudged  to  the  Phrygians.  The  test 
was  scarcely  trustworthy,  for  probably  enough  the 
cry  was  only  an  imitation  of  the  bleat  of  the -goats. 
It  has  indeed  been  claimed  by  etymologists  as  the 
Sanscrit  root  “  pac”  whence  our  word  “  cook  ”  is  said 
to  be  derived.  The  Germans,  again,  recognise  in  it 
their  own  “  bakken  ”  =  bake.* 

According  to  the  priests,  who  were  Herodotus’s  chief 
informants,  the  whole  country  except  the  district  of 
Thebes,  seven  days’  sail  up  the  Nile  from  the  sea,  was 
originally  a  swamp.  To  the  truth  of  this  our  author 
was  ready  to  testify,  as  the  whole  Delta  (called  so  from 
the  shape  of  the  Greek  letter  A,  our  D)  appeared  to  him 
to  be  “  the  gift  of  the  river.”  This  formation  certainly 
required  time,  but  he  considered  that  the  N  ile  was  so 

*  Englishmen  have  suggested  that  it  may  have  been  a  feeble 
attempt  to  call  for  “breakfast." 


r 


EGYPT. 


43 


energetic,  that  in  ten  thousand  years  (which  is,  after 
all,  a  very  moderate  geological  period)  it  might  even 
deposit  alluvial  soil  enough  to  fill  up  the  Arabian  gulf 
9f  the  Ked  Sea.  The  priests  appear  to  have  given 
nim  very  good  data  for  supplementing  his  own  obser¬ 
vations  on  the  physical  phenomena  of  the  country;  and 
in  these  details  he  evinces  a  patient  investigation  of  facts 
which  would  do  credit  to  any  age,  however  scientific. 
He  only  becomes  fanciful  when  he  begins  to  speculate 
on  the  unknown.  With  respect  to  the  causes  of  the 
annual  inundations  of  the  Nile,  he  could,  naturally 
enough,  get  no  trustworthy  information.  It  struck  him 
as  particularly  strange  that  the  Nile,  unlike  other  l  ivers, 
should  begin  to  rise  with  the  summer  solstice,  and 
be  in  a  state  of  flood  for  a  hundred  days  afterwards. 
Certain  Greeks  who  affected  a  reputation  for  science 
endeavoured  to  account  for  the  phenomenon  in  three 
ways.  The  third,  which  appeared  to  Herodotus  the  least 
plausible  explanation,  was,  that  the  Nile  was  swollen  by 
melting  snows,  though  it  flows  through  the  torrid  land 
of  the  Ethiopians  into  Egypt — which  seemed  to  him  a 
contradiction.  Yet  this  theory  was  so  near  the  actual 
truth,  that  the  inundations  are  caused  by  the  summer 
rains  in  the  highlands  of  Abyssinia  and  on  the  equa¬ 
torial  table-land  of  Africa.  That  Herodotus  had  seen 
an  inundation  of  the  river  is  tolerably  certain,  from  his 
description  of  the  appearance  of  the  country  at  such 
times.  He  speaks  of  the  towns  and  villages  standing 
out  of  the  water  “  like  the  islands  in  the  AEgean  Sea 
a  graphic  picture,  of  which  modern  travellers  have 
recognised  the  truth.  Adopting  neither  of  the  theories 
which  had  been  advanced,  Herodotus  modestly  pro¬ 
pounds  one  of  his  own,  which  is  curious,  but  of  no 


u 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


scientific  value,  as  resting  on  false  cosmographical 
data. 

As  to  the  sources  of  the  Nile,  he  says  that  he  never 
met  with  but  one  person  who  professed  to  know 
anything  about  them.  This  was  the  registrar  of  the 
treasury  of  Minerva  at  Sa'is ;  but  when  he  began  to 
talk  about  two  conical  hills — “called  Krophi  and 
Mophi  ” — between  Syene  and  Elephantine  (below  the 
cataracts),  Herodotus  thought  he  could  hardly  bo 
quite  serious.  Between  those  hills,  said  his  in¬ 
formant,  lay  the  fountains  of  the  Nile,  of  unfathom¬ 
able  depth.  Half  the  water  ran  to  Egypt,  the  other 
half  to  Ethiopia.  Psammetichus  had  tried  to  sound 
them  with  a  rope  many  thousand  fathoms  in  length, 
but  there  were  such  strong  eddies  in  the  water  that 
the  bottom  of  the  spring  could  never  be  reached. 
Herodotus  himself  went  up  the  Nile  as  far  as  Ele¬ 
phantine — that  is,  did  not  get  beyond  the  first  cata¬ 
ract  ;  and  though  he  learnt  much  by  inquiry  as  to  the 
country  generally,  he  could  throw  no  additional  light 
on  the  great  question.  But  a  story  reached  him 
originally  derived  from  certain  Nasamonians — a  people 
inhabiting  the  edge  of  the  desert — that  once  on  a  time 
certain  “wild  young  men,”  sons  of  their  chiefs,  took 
it  into  their  heads  to  draw  lots  which  of  them 
should  go  and  explore  the  desert  of  Libya,  and  try  to 
get  farther  than  any  one  had  gone  before.  Eive  of 
their  number  set  out,  well  supplied  with  food  and 
water,  and  passed  first  through  the  inhabited  region, 
then  through  a  country  tenanted  only  by  wild  beasts, 
and  then  entered  the  desert,  taking  a  direction  from 
east  to  west.  After  proceeding  for  many  days  ovei 
a  sandy  waste,  they  came  at  last  to  a  plain  where 


EGYPT. 


45 


they  found  fruit-trees,  and  began  to  pluck  the  fruit. 
While  they  were  doing  so,  certain  very  small  men 
came  upon  them  and  took  them  prisoners.  The  Nas- 
amonians  could  not  understand  them,  nor  make 
themselves  understood.  They  were  led  by  them 
across  vast  marshes,  and  at  last  came  to  a  town  where 
all  the  inhabitants  were  black  dwarfs  like  their  cap- 
tors.  A  great  river  flowed  by  the  town  from  west  to 
east,  abounding  in  crocodiles.  And  all  the  people  in 
the  town  were  wizards.  It  was  added  that  the  ex¬ 
plorers  returned  in  safety  from  their  perilous  journey. 
If  the  Bushmen  now  surviving  at  the  Cape,  and 
formerly  more  extensively  spread  over  Africa,  were  a 
black  race,  which  they  are  not,  we  might  suppose 
them  to  be  the  descendants  of  the  little  men  spoken 
of  by  Herodotus.  Their  colour  may,  however,  have 
been  modified  by  the  temperate  climate  of  South  Africa 
in  the  course  of  long  ages.  The  tribe  of  Dokos,  in 
the  south-west  of  Abyssinia,  are  dwarfish,  and  answer 
very  nearly  to  Herodotus’s  description.  Herodotus  was 
inclined  to  identify  the  Nile  with  the  river  flowing  by 
the  mysterious  city.* 

It  is  strange  that  the  oldest  geographical  problem  in 
the  world  should  be  a  problem  still,  though  now  prob¬ 
ably  in  the  course  of  solution.  The  nearest  approach 
to  the  truth  appears  to  have  been  made  by  the  Alex¬ 
andrian  geographer,  Ptolemy,  who  had  heard  of  cer¬ 
tain  lakes  as  the  sources  of  the  Nile,  and  placed  them 
some  ten  degrees  south  of  the  equator.  The  question 
elumbered  through  the  middle  ages,  and  one  affluent 
after  another  was  looked  upon  as  the  true  Nile,  till 

*  It  was  more  probably,  as  Mr  Rawlinson  and  Mr  Blakesley 
both  think,  the  Niger,  and  the  city  may  have  been  Timbuctoo. 


40  THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 

Bruce  was  for  some  time  supposed  to  have  set  the 
question  at  rest  in  the  eighteenth  century,  by  the 
discovery  of  the  source  of  the  Blue  River.  Quite  of 
late  years  it  was  agreed  again  that  the  White  River 
was  the  main  branch ;  and  in  1857  Captain  Speke, 
setting  out  from  Zanzibar,  discovered  the  Victoria 
Lake,  whicli  is  now  the  farthest  authenticated  source 
in  an  easterly  direction,  while  Sir  Samuel  Baker’s 
Albert  Lake  is  the  farthest  authenticated  source  in  a 
westerly.  Up  to  this  time  Speke  and  his  companion 
Major  Grant  are  the  only  men  who  have  actually 
crossed  Africa  from  south-east  to  north,  and  as  yet  the 
honours  of  discovery  must  be  supposed  to  rest  with 
them. 

In  treating  of  the  wonders  of  Egypt,  Herodotus 
certainly  exaggerates  on  some  points  from  love  of 
paradox,  as  when  he  says  that  as  the  Uile  differs  from 
all  other  rivers  in  its  nature,  so  the  Egyptians  differ 
from  all  other  men  in  their  habits,  the  men  doing  what 
is  usually  considered  as  women’s  work,  and  the  women 
men’s  work ;  for  in  this  he  is  refuted  by  the  Egyptian 
paintings,  which  represent  each  sex  as  usually  engaged 
in  its  proper  occupation.  But  a  Greek  must  have  been 
much  struck  with  the  comparative  freedom  of  the 
Egyptian  women,  so  unlike  the  life  of  the  Hellenic 
“  lady’s  bower,”  or  the  Asiatic  harem.  Sophocles,  in  his 
1  CEdipus  at  Colonus,’  has  made  a  beautiful  application 
of  this  recorded  contrast  to  the  helpful  piety  of  the 
daughters  and  the  selfish  luxury  of  the  sons  of  the 
blind  hero,  which  would  seem  to  show  that  he  wrote 
the  play  fresh  from  the  perusal  of  his  friend’s  Egypt. 

Our  author  makes  the  observation  that  the  Egyptians 
were  the  first  nation  who,  holding  the  soul  to  be  immor 


EGYP  T. 


47 


tal,  asserted  its  migration  after  deatli  through  the  whole 
round  of  created  beings,  till  it  lived  again  in  another  man, 
which  occupied  a  cycle  of  three  thousand  years.  This 
doctrine  of  a  “  circle  of  necessity  ”  was  held  alike  by 
Buddhists,  Druids,  and — if  Josephus  may  be  trusted 
— by  the  sect  of  the  Pharisees  among  the  Jews.  But 
this  Egyptian  doctrine,  which  is  profusely  illustrated 
on  the  tombs,  suffered  the  wicked  only  to  descend  into 
animals,  while  the  good  passed  at  once  into  a  state  of  hap¬ 
piness.  A  striking  custom  which  Herodotus  describes 
would  seem  to  show  that  to  them,  as  to  the  Greeks, 
the  future  existence  was  not  a  cheering  prospect. 

“  In  the  social  banquets  of  the  rich,  as  soon  as  the 
feast  is  ended,  a  man  carries  round  a  wooden  figure  of 
a  corpse  in  its  coffin,  graven  and  painted  so  as  to  re¬ 
semble  the  reality  as  nearly  as  possible,  from  one  to 
two  cubits  long.  And  as  he  shows  it  to  each  of  the 
guests,  he  says,  “  Look  on  this,  and  drink,  and  be 
merry;  for  when  thou  art  dead,  such  shalt  thou  be.” 

The  “  skeleton  at  the  banquet  ”  has  pointed  many 
a  moral  for  ancient  and  modern  writers.  St  Paul  may 
have  had  it  in  mind  when  he  quoted  as  the  motto  of 
the  Sadducee,  “Let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow 
we  die,”  as  well  as  Shakespeare,  when  he  makes  his 
Hamlet  moralise  over  Yorick’s  skull — “Now  get  you 
to  my  lady’s  chamber,  and  tell  her,  let  her  paint  an 
inch  thick,  to  this  favour  she  must  come.” 

Herodotus  considers  that  the  names  of  the  gods 
came  to  Greece  from  Egypt,  with  the  exception  of 
Poseidon  (Neptune),  Castor  and  Pollux,  Here  (Juno), 
Hestia,  Themis,  the  Graces  and  the  Nereids.  All 
these  the  Greeks  were  said  to  have  inherited  from  the 
Pelasgians,  with  the  exception  of  the  sea-god  Post  i 


48 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


cion,  with  whom  they  became  acquainted  through  the 
Libyans.  The  Egyptians,  unlike  the  Greeks,  paid  no 
honour  to  heroes  or  demigods ;  for  their  god  Osiris 
(who  corresponded  to  Bacchus)  appeared  on  earth 
only  as  a  manifestation  or  Avatar  of  Deity.  Amongst 
the  mythological  marvels  of  the  Egyptians,  Herodotus 
relates  that  they  accounted  cows  as  sacred  to  Isis,  the 
moon-goddess,  represented  with  horns,  and  objected  to 
kill  them  as  food — a  practice  which  finds  its  parallel  in 
India  at  the  present  day.  The  sacredness  of  animals 
generally,  in  Egypt,  struck  our  traveller  forcibly.  Eor 
each  species  there  were  certain  appointed  guardians, 
who  tended  and  fed  them,  and  the  office  was  heredi¬ 
tary.  To  kill  one  of  these  sacred  animals  was  a  capital 
offence,  unless  done  accidentally,  in  which  case  a  fine 
was  inflicted ;  but  to  kill  an  ibis  or  a  hawk  was  death 
without  reprieve.  Cats  were  so  much  respected  that, 
in  case  of  a  fire  occurring,  the  Egyptians  would  let  the 
house  be  burnt  before  their  eyes,  all  their  attention 
being  given  to  saving  the  cats  ;  which,  however,  they 
usually  found  Impossible,  as  the  animals  (no  doubt  in 
terror  at  the  well-meant  efforts.of  their  friends)  had  a 
trick  of  jumping  into  the  flames.  If  they  died,  never¬ 
theless,  it  was  thought  to  be  a  terrible  misfortune.  When 
a  cat  died  a  natural  death,  all  the  inmates  of  a  house 
went  into  mourning  by  shaving  their  eyebrows,  and 
they  shaved  their  heads  and  their  whole  bodies  when 
a  dog  died.  The  dead  cats  were  embalmed,  and  theii 
mummies  stored  in  the  sacred  city  of  Bubastis ;  but 
the  dogs  were  buried  in  their  own  cities,  as  were  also 
the  ichneumons.  The  hawks  and  shrew-mice  were 
conveyed  to  Buto,  and  the  ibises  to  Hermopolis.  It 
would  seem  by  this  that  the  animals  about  whose 


EGYPT : 


49 


funerals  so  mucli  trouble  was  taken  were  more  sacred 
than  the  rest.*  The  crocodile,  of  which  Herodotus 
gives  a  description,  perhaps  as  fairly  accurate  as  could 
he  expected  from  an  ordinary  observer,  was  accounted 
sacred  by  some  of  the  Egyptians ;  for  instance,  by  the 
people  about  Thebes,  and  those  about  Lake  Mceris. 
I  n  each  of  these  places  a  tame  crocodile  was  kept,  who 
v>  ore  ear-rings  (or  rather  rings  in  the  corresponding 
holes)  of  glass  or  gold,  and  bracelets  on  his  fore-paws. 
Every  day  he  had  his  ration  of  bread  and  meat,  and 
when  lie  died  he  was  buried  in  a  consecrated  vault. 
But  the  people  of  Elephantine,  so  far  from  canonising 
these  animals,  thought  them  tolerable  eating. 

Herodotus  gives  a  native  receipt  for  catching  croco¬ 
diles.  Bait  a  hook  with  a  chine  of  pork,  and  let  it 
float  to  about  the  middle  of  the  stream.  Let  a  confed¬ 
erate  hold  a  living  pig  on  the  bank,  and  belabour  him 
lustily.  The  crocodile  hears  the  pig  squeak,  and,  mak¬ 
ing  for  him,  encounters  the  pork,  which  he  swallows. 
When  the  men  on  shore  have  drawn  him  to  land,  plug 
his  eyes  with  mud ;  after  that,  it  is  very  easy  to  kill 
him.  This  latter  item  of  the  receipt  has  a  strong 
affinity  to  an  old  precept  about  “  putting  salt  on  a 
bird’s  tail.”  A  very  similar  mode  of  capture  (with  this 
exception)  is  practised  by  the  natives  now.  The  name 
“  crocodilos,”  as  the  author  observes,  is  Ionic  Greek 
for  “  lizard the  Egyptians  themselves  calling  the 
animal  “  champsa.”  t  He  is  somewhat  mistaken  in  his 

*  Lane  says  that  the  modern  Egyptians  are  remarkably  kind 
to  animals.  On  one  occasion  a  lady  buried  a  favourite  dog 
with  all  the  honours  due  to  a  good  Mussulman,  and  houseless 
cats  are  fed  at  the  expense  of  the  Cadi  of  the  district. 

1'  Apparently  an  attempt  to  write  the  name  msah,  still  to  be 

A.  c.  voh  iii.  I> 


50 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


account  of  the  hippopotamus,  no  specimen  of  which 
he  appears  to  have  seen.  He  gives  it  the  hoof  of  an 
ox,  and  the  mane  and  neigh  of  a  horse. 

The  sacred  bird  called  the  phoenix  Herodotus  confesses 
he  never  saw  except  in  pictures.  Indeed  it  was  rare 
in  Egypt,  for  it  came  hut  once  in  five  hundred  years, 
when  the  old  phoenix  died.  According  to  the  pictures, 
it  was  like  an  eagle,  with  plumage  partly  red  and  partly 
golden.  The  bird  was  said  to  come  from  Arabia, 
bringing  the  body  of  his  father  enclosed  in  a  ball  of 
myrrh,  that  he  might  bury  it  in  the  temple  of  the  Suu. 
Our  author  did  not  seem  to  be  acquainted  with  that 
other  version  of  the  phoenix  fable,  according  to  which 
it  returned  from  the  east  after  a  stated  period  to  burn 
itself  in  frankincense,  and  was  again  resuscitated. 
The  phoenix  was  an  emblem  of  the  soul  and  its  sup¬ 
posed  migrations,  and  its  journey  to  the  east  typified 
the  constant  aspiration  of  the  soul  towards  the  sun. 
Its  period  of  migration  referred  to  a  solar  cycle  in  the 
Egyptian  calendar.  Pliny  says  that  the  name  was 
derived  from  a  species  of  palm  in  Lower  Egypt,  which 
dies  down  to  the  root  and  then  is  renovated.  Ovid 
makes  the  bird  build  its  nest  on  a  palm.  In  hieroglyphic 
language  the  palm-bough  is  the  sign  of  the  year. 

Amongst  other  wonders,  our  author  had  heard  of 
winged  serpents,  which  flew  across  from  Arabia,  and 
wTas  induced  to  undertake  a  journey  to  the  country 
whence  they  came,  where  he  says  he  saw  some  of  their 
bones.  The  ibises  were  said  to  destroy  them  as  they 
flew,  wrhich  caused  this  bird  to  be  held  in  great  honour 
by  the  Egyptians.  We  are  now  in  possession  of  the 

traced  in  the  Arabic  temsah. — See  Sir  G.  Wilkinson’s  note, 
Rawlinson,  ii.  110. 


EGYPT. 


probable  key  to  tbis  enigmatical  story,  which  illustrates 
both  the  simple  faith  and  painstaking  of  our  author, 
and  also  the  manner  in  which  myths  grow  out  of  the 
use  of  words.  When  scorpions  or  snakes  appear  in 
large  numbers  in  the  houses  in  Upper  Egypt,  they  are 
supposed  to  be  brought  by  the  wind,  and  to  all  such 
objects  an  Arabic  word  is  applied  which  signifies  to 
fly.  Herodotus  doubtless  saw  pictures  of  a  winged  ser¬ 
pent  attacked  by  the  ibis,  but  this  bird  typified  the 
god  Osiris  in  the  white  robes  of  his  purity,  and  the 
winged  serpent  probably  the  Evil  principle.  The  ibis, 
however,  is  said  to  destroy  snakes.  His  mention  of 
the  harmless  horned  snakes  at  Thebes,  which  were 
considered  sacred,  and  buried  in  the  temple,  may  suggest 
the  prolific  subject  of  primeval  serpent-worship. 

The  description  which  Herodotus  gives  of  the  man¬ 
ners  and  customs  of  the  Egyptians  stamps  them  as 
a  highly  civilised  people.  In  the  reverence  paid  by 
young  men  to  their  elders,  he  considered  that  they 
set  a  good  example  to  the  Greeks.  In  the  medical 
profession  they  recognised  a  minute  division  of  labour, 
some  being  oculists,  others  dentists,  and  so  forth.* 
Those  who  embalmed  the  dead  (the  “  physicians u 
of  the  book  of  Genesis)  formed  a  profession  of  them¬ 
selves.  He  describes  at  length  three  methods  of  em¬ 
balming  (they  had  really  many  more),  which  were 
adopted  in  order  to  suit  the  means  of  their  customers, 
as  modern  undertakers  provide  for  funerals  at  different 
tariffs.  Amongst  other  local  peculiarities,  Herodotus 
notices  the  lotus-eaters  of  the  marsh -lands,  who  re¬ 
mind  us  of  those  described  by  Homer  in  the  voyage  of 

*  “0  virgin,  daughter  of  Egypt,  in  vain  shalt  thou  use 
mcuiy  medicines.” — Jer.  xlvi.  fl. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


Ulysses.  But  these  latter— if  tliey  are  to  be  identified 
at  all — are  to  be  recognised  rather  in  the  lotus-eating 
tribe  whom  our  author  mentions  in  a  subsequent  -book 
as  existing  on  the  coast  of  Africa.  Their  lotus  was  pro¬ 
bably  a  kind  of  jujube  (Zlzt/pJius  napeca).  The  Egyp¬ 
tian  lotus  was  a  kind  of  water-lily,  the  centre  of  whose 
blossom  was  dried,  crushed,  and  eaten,  as  also  its  round 
root.  The  seeds  of  another  water-lily,  whose  blossoms 
were  like  a  rose,  were  also  eaten,  as  well  as  the  lower 
stems  of  the  byblus  or  papyrus,  whose  leaves  were 
used  for  paper  and  other  purposes.  The  mosquitoes 
were  as  great  a  nuisance  in  Egypt  formerly  as  now. 
Herodotus  says  that  some  of  the  natives,  to  avoid 
them,  slept  on  towers  exposed  to  the  wind  ;  but  in  the 
marslijBS  each  man  had  a  net,  which  served  the  double 
purpose  of  catching  fish  by  day  and  acting  as  a  mos¬ 
quito-curtain  at  night. 

For  the  early  history  of  the  country  Herodotus  had 
to  depend  upon  his  informants,  who  were  usually  the 
priests,  especially  those  of  Heliopolis  —  the  Greek 
name  by  which  he  knew  the  oldest  capital  of  Egypt, 
Ei-h-re,  the  On  or  Aon  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures — the 
“City  of  the  Sun.”*  The  college  of  priests  there 
was  in  fact  the  university  of  Egypt ;  and  whatever 
faith  we  may  place  in  their  historical  records,  their 
proficiency  in  mathematics  and  astronomy  was  very 
considerable  indeed.  They  asserted  that  the  first 

*  The  “  Aven  ”  of  Ezek.  xxx.  17 ;  translated  into  the  Hebrew 
B ?th-shemesh — “  House  of  the  Sun” — Jer.  xliii.  13.  The  silt 
of  the  Nile  has  now  covered  most  of  its  monuments  and  build 
ings,  but  its  massive  walls  may  still  be  traced,  and  a  solitary 
granite  obelisk,  said  to  be  near  4000  years  old,  marks  what  was 
the  entrance  to  the  temple  of  the  Suu. 


EGYPT. 


53 


kings  of  Egypt  were  gods,  “  who  dwelt  upon  earth 
with  men.”  The  last  of  this  divine  dynasty  was 
Homs,  son  of  Osiris — whom  the  Greeks  identified  with 
Apollo.  The  sufferings  and  death  of  Osiris  were  the 
great  mystery  of  the  Egyptian  creed.  Herodotus  had 
seen  his  burial-place  at  Sais,  and  knew  the  mysterious 
rites  with  which,  under  cover  of  night,  these  sufferings 
were  commemorated.  But  he  “will  by  no  means 
speak  of  them,”  or  even  mention  the  god  by  name. 
Either  the  priests  had  enjoined  secrecy  upon  him 
as  the  price  of  their  information ;  or  perhaps,  being 
himself  initiated  in  the  Greek  Mysteries,  he  had 
a  scrupulous  reverence  for  those  of  Egypt.  Osiris 
was  the  great  principle  of  Good,  who  slew  his  bro¬ 
ther  Typhon,  the  representative  of  Evil ;  and  is  pic¬ 
tured  in  the  hieroglyphic  paintings  as  the  great  judge 
of  the  dead.  The  first  king  of  human  race  was  Men,  or 
Menes,  the  founder  of  Memphis,  who  began  a  line  of 
three  hundred  and  thirty  monarchs  (including  one 
queen),  whose  names  were  read  off  to  Herodotus  from  a 
roll  of  papyrus.  Eighteen  were  said  to  be  Ethiopians. 
Of  most  of  these  kings  the  priests  professed  to  know 
little  more  than  the  names ;  but  Moeris,  the  last  of 
them,  left  his  name  to  a  large  artificial  lake,  or  reser¬ 
voir,  near  the  “  City  of  Crocodiles,”  from  which  water 
was  conveyed  to  all  parts  of  the  neighbourhood.  His 
successor,  Sesostris,  is  said  to  have  conquered  all  Asia, 
and  even  to  have  subdued  Scythia  and  Thrace,  in 
Europe,  marking  the  limits  of  his  conquests  by  pillars 
— two  of  which,  in  Palestine,  Herodotus  declares  that 
he  himself  saw.*  Sesostris,  after  his  return  from  his 

*  There  is  little  doubt  that  these  are  the  tablets  still  to  ba 
seen  near  Beyrout. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


5t 

conquests,  n;et  with  somewhat  too  warm  a  welcome 
from  his  brother,  whom  lie  had  left  viceroy  of  Egypt, 
lie  invited  the  hero  and  his  family  to  a  banquet, 
heaped  wood  all  round  the  building,  and  set  fire  to  it. 
Sesostris  only  escaped  by  sacrificing  (by  the  mother’s 
advice)  two  of  his  six  sons,  whose  bodies  he  used  to 
bridge  the  circle  of  flame.  Having  inflicted  condign 
punishment  on  his  brother,  he  then  proceeded  to  utilise 
the  vast  multitudes  of  captives  whom  he  had  brought 
with  him.  By  the  employment  of  this  forced  labour 
he  changed  the  face  of  Egypt,  completely  intersecting 
it  with  canals,  and  filling  it  with  public  buildings  of  un¬ 
paralleled  magnificence.  The  second  king  after  Sesos¬ 
tris  bore  a  Greek  name,  but  must  be  regarded  as  a  very 
apocryphal  personage — Proteus,  who  was  said  to  have 
entertained  at  his  court  no  less  famous  a  visitor  than 
Helen,  the  heroine  of  the  Trojan  war.  For  the  Egyptian 
priests  had  their  version,  too,  of  that  wondrous  Tale. 
According  to  them,  the  Spartan  princess  was  driven 
by  stress  of  weather  do  Egypt  on  her  forced  elopement 
with  Paris,  while  Troy  was  besieged  by  the  Greeks, 
in  the  belief  that  she  was  there.  King  Proteus,  when 
lie  heard  the  story,  gave  Helen  refuge,  but  dismissed 
Paris  at  once  with  disgrace.  Herodotus  accuses  Homer 
of  knowing  this  legend,  which  was  a  more  probable 
version  of  the  story  than  his  own,  and  suppressing  it 
for  poetical  purposes,  since  he  speaks  of  the  long  wan¬ 
derings  of  Helen,  and  of  Menelaus’s  visit  to  Egypt. 
The  priests  told  him  that  their  predecessors  had  the 
story  from  Menelaus  himself,  who  went  to  Egypt  to 
fetch  Helen,  when  he  found,  after  the  capture  of  Troy, 
that  she  was  not  there.  Herodotus  himself  saw  in  the 
sacred  precincts  at  Men  phis  a  temple  to  “  Venus  the 


EGYPT. 


55 


Foreigner,”  whom  his  Greek  patriotism  at  once  iden¬ 
tified  with  Helen. 

A  story  told  at  considerable  length  by  Herodotus  of 
the  next  king,  Rhampsinitus,  is  highly  characteristic, 
showing  that  sympathy  of  the  Greek  mind  for  clever 
rascality  which  recalls  Homer’s  manifest  enjoyment  of 
the  wily  tricks  of  Ulysses  in  the  ‘  Odyssey.’  The  story 
of  “The  Treasury  of  Rhampsinitus,”  which  has  been 
borrowed  also  by  the  Italian  novelists,  reads  as  if  it 
were  taken  from  the  ‘  Arabian  Nights.’ 

King  Rhampsinitus,  having  vast  treasure  of  silver, 
built  for  its  safe  keeping  a  chamber  of  hewn  stone, 
one  of  whose  walls  formed  also  the  outer  wall  of  his 
palace.  His  architect,  however,  having  designs  on  the 
treasure,  built  a  stone  into  the  wall,  which  even  one 
man  who  knew  the  secret  could  easily  displace.  He 
did  not  live  long  enough  to  carry  out  his  views,  but  on 
his  deathbed  explained  the  contrivance  to  his  two  sons, 
for  whose  sake,  he  said,  he  had  devised  it,  that  they 
might  live  as  rich  men,  since  the  secret  would  make  them 
virtual  chancellors  of  the  royal  exchequer  through  their 
lives.  After  his  death,  the  sons  profited  by  his  instruc¬ 
tions  to  remove  a  considerable  sum.  The  king,  when 
next  he  came  to  visit  the  room,  missed  his  money,  finding 
it  standing  at  a  lower  level  in  the  vessels.  This  hap¬ 
pened  again  and  again,  though  the  seals  and  fastenings 
of  the  room  were  as  secure  as  ever.  At  last  he  set  a 
man-trap  inside.  When  the  thieves  next  made  their 
usual  visit,  one  of  them  found  himself  suddenly  caught. 
Seeing  no  hope  of  escape,  he  called  to  his  brother  to  come 
and  cut  off  his  head,  to  prevent  his  being  recognised. 
The  brother  obeyed  ;  and,  after  replacing  the  stone, 
made  his  way  home  with  the  head.  When  the  king 


56 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


entered  at  day-break,  lie  greatly  marvelled  to  see  a  head¬ 
less  trunk  in  the  gin,  while  the  building  seemed  still 
to  be  fast  closed  all  round.  To  find  out  to  whom  the 
body  belonged,  he  ordered  it  to  be  hung  outside  the 
palace-wall,  and  set  a  guard  to  watch,  and  bring  before 
him  any  persons  they  might  observe  lamenting  over  it 
The  mother  of  the  dead  man,  hearing  of  this  desecra¬ 
tion  of  a  corpse  that  should  have  been  a  mummy,  told 
her  surviving  son  that  -unless  he  contrived  to  rescue  it, 
she  would  go  and  tell  the  king  that  he  was  the  robber. 
Wearied  with  her  continual  reproaches,  at  last  the 
brother  filled  some  skins  with  wine,  loaded  them  on 
asses,  and  drove  them  by  tho  place  where  the  guards 
were  watching  the  dead  body  Then  he  slily  untied  the 
necks  of  some  of  the  skins.  The  wine  of  course  began 
to  run  out,  upon  which  he  fed  to  wailing  and  beating  his 
head,  as  if  distracted,  and  not  knowing  to  which  donkey 
he  should  run  first  to  stanch  the  wine.  This  highly 
amused  the  guards,  who  ran  eagerly  to  catch  the  wine 
in  all  the  vessels  they  could  lay  hands  on.  Then  the 
driver  pretended  to  get  into  a  passion,  and  abused 
them,  upon  which  they  did  their  best  to  quiet  him. 
At  last,  appearing  to  be  put  in  good -humour  again 
by  their  raillery,  he  gave  them  one  of  the  skins  to 
drink.  They  invited  him  to  help  them  with  the 
drinking,  as  they  had  helped  him  in  putting  the 
skins  in  order.  As  the  wine  went  round,  all  got  more 
and  more  friendly,  till  they  broached  another  skin,  and 
at  last  the  guards  all  got  so  drunk  that  they  went  to 
sleep  on  the  spot.  In  the  dead  of  the  night  the  thief 
took  down  the  body  of  his  brother,  laid  it  upon  the 
asses,  and  made  off,  having  first  remained  long  enough 
to  shave  off  the  right  whiskers  of  each  of  the  men*- 


EGYPT. 


57 


which  was  considered  a  deadly  insult.  When  the 
king  heard  of  this,  he  was  more  vexed  than  ever,  and 
determined  to  find  out  the  thief  at  any  cost.  He  hade 
his  daughter  keep  open  house  for  all  comers,  and  pro¬ 
mise  to  marry  the  man  who  would  tell  her  most  tc 
her  satisfaction  the  cleverest  and  wickedest  thing  he 
had  ever  done.  If  any  one  told  her  the  story  of  the 
robbery,  she  was  to  lay  hold  of  him.  But  the  thiei 
was  not  to  be  thus  outwitted..  He  procured  a  dead 
man’s  arm,  put  it  under  his  dress,  and  went  to  call  on 
the  princess.  When  she  put  the  question,  he  answered 
at  once  that  the  wickedest  thing  he  had  ever  done  was 
cutting  off  his  brother’s  head  in  the  king’s  treasury, 
and  the  cleverest  was  making  the  guards  drunk,  and 
carrying  off’  his  body.  The  princess  made  a  grasp  at 
him,  but  in  the  darkness  he  left  the  arm  of  the  corpse 
in  her  hand  and  fled.  But  now  the  king  was  over¬ 
whelmed  with  astonishment  and  admiration  for  the 
man’s  cleverness,  and  made  a  proclamation  of  free 
pardon  and  a  rich  reward,  if  the  thief  would  declare 
himself.  He  boldly  came  forward,  and  Bhampsinitus 
gave  him  his  daughter  in  marriage.  “  The  Egyptians,” 
he  said,  “  are  the  wisest  of  men,  and  thou  art  the  wisest 
of  the  Egyptians.” 

Till  the  death  of  Bhampsinitus,  Egypt  enjoyed  pro¬ 
sperity.  Cheops,  who  succeeded  him,  and  who  built 
the  Great  Pyramid,  is  said  to  have  shut  up  all  the  tem¬ 
ples,  that  his  people  might  do  nothing  but  work  for 
him ;  and  he  kept  a  hundred  thousand  labouring  at 
a  time,  who  were  relieved  every  three  months.  It 
took  ten  years  to  make  the  causeway  (of  which  traces 
still  remain)  for  the  conveyance  of  stones,  and  another 
twenty  to  build  the  Pyramid  itself.  The  next  kings, 


5S 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


Chephren  and  Mycerinus  (Mencheres),  likewise  built 
j)yramids,  but  on  a  smaller  scale.  The  memory  of 
Cheops  and  Chephren,  in  consequence  of  their  oppres¬ 
sions,  became  so  odious  to  the  Egyptians,  that  they 
would  not  even  mention  their  names ;  but  upon  My¬ 
cerinus,  though  he  was  just  and  merciful,  there  fell 
the  punishment  due  for  their  sins.  First  he  lost 
his  only  daughter,  and  then  an  oracle  told  him  that 
he  had  but  six  years  to  live.  He  expostulated  with 
the  oracle,  saying  it  was  hard  that  he  who  was  a  good 
and  righteous  king  should  die  early,  while  his  father 
and  uncle,  who  were  so  impious,  lived  long.  The  oracle 
answered — “  For  that  verv  reason  thou  must  die,  for 
Egypt  was  destined  to  suffer  ill  for  one  hundred  and 
fifty  years,  and  thou  hinderest  the  doom  from  being 
fulfilled.”  On  this  Mycerinus,  finding  it  useless  to  be 
virtuous,  determined  to  outwit  the  gods ;  so  he  lighted 
lamps  at  nightfall,  and  turned  all  the  nights  into  days, 
and  enjoyed  them,  as  well  as  the  days,  in  feasting  in  all 
pleasant  places.  Thus  he  lived  twelve  years  in  the  space 
of  six,  making  his  six  years  one  long  day  of  continuous 
revel.  The  story  of  Mycerinus  has  been  very  happily 
treated  in  one  of  Matthew  Arnold’s  earliest  poems.* 

“  I  will  unfold  my  sentence  and  my  crime  ; 

My  crime,  that  rapt  in  reverential  awe, 

I  sate  obedient,  in  the  fiery  prime 

Of  youth,  self-governed,  at  the  feet  of  Law, 
Ennobling  this  dull  pomp,  the  life  of  kings, 

With  contemplation  of  diviner  things. 

*  Its  moral — if  it  has  any — may  be  found  in  Moore’s  song, 

“  And  the  best  of  all  ways 
To  lengthen  our  days, 

Is  to  steal  a  few  hours  from  the  night,  my  dear.” 


EGYPT. 


59 


<lMy  father  loved  injustice,  and  lived  long  ; 

Crowned  with  grey  hairs  he  died,  and  lull  of  sway. 

I  loved  the  good  he  scorned,  and  hated  wrong ; 

The  gois  declare  my  recompense  to-day. 

I  looked  for  life  more  lasting,  rule  more  high — 

And  when  six  years  are  measured,  lo,  I  die  !” 

After  him  came  a  blind  king  named  Anysis,  during 
whose  reign  Egypt  was  invaded  by  the  Ethiopians,  who 
lorded  it  over  the  country  for  fifty  years.  He  was  suc¬ 
ceeded  by  Sethos,  a  priest  of  Vulcan,  who  oppressed  the 
warrior  caste,  so  that  they  refused  to  serve  him  when 
Sennacherib,  king  of  the  Assyrians,  invaded  the  coun¬ 
try.  But  a  vision  in  the  sanctuary  bid  him  be  of  good 
cheer ;  and  when  he  went  out  to  the  frontier  with  an 
army  of  citizens,  trusting  in  divine  aid,  a  number  of 
field-mice  came  in  the  night  and  gnawed  the  bow¬ 
strings,  quivers,  and  shield-straps  of  the  enemy,  so  that 
the  Egyptians  easily  defeated  them.  Such  is  the  dim 
tradition  which  reached  the  historian  of  the  mysteri¬ 
ous  destruction  of  the  Assyrian  host  recorded  in  the 
Scriptures.  The  mouse,  according  to  some  interpreters 
of  hieroglyphic  language,  was  the  symbol  of  destruction. 
Thus  far  Herodotus  had  derived  his  information  as  to 
early  Egyptian  history  entirely  from  the  priests.  He  com¬ 
puted  that  the  reigns  of  these  kings,  as  given  him,  would 
require  eleven  thousand  three  hundred  and  forty  years. 

A  revolution  seemed  to  have  occurred  after  the  death 
of  Sethos,  by  which  twelve  provincial  kings,  like  those 
of  the  Saxon  Heptarchy,  reigned  at  once.  Their  great 
work  was  a  labyrinth  near  Lake  Moeris,  which  struck 
Herodotus  as  one  of  the  wonders  of  the  world — more 
wonderful  even  than  the  Pyramids  themselves.  One 
of  the  twelve,  Psammetichus,  at  length  managed  to 


CO 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


depose  tlie  rest  tlie  aid  of  Greek  mercenaries.  Ki< 
son,  Neclios  (Pharaoh  Neclio),  is  credited  by  Herodotus 
with  the  first  attempt  to  construct  the  canal  to  the  Tied 
Sea,  which  was  afterwards  finished  by  Darius  Hystaspes. 
The  canal,  however,  was  more  probably  begun  by  Se- 
sostris  (Bameses  II.),  and  there  appears  to  be  evidence 
that  it  was  choked  by  sand  (which  is  still  the  diffi¬ 
culty  with  modern  engineers),  and  reopened  many  times 
—  by  the  Ptolemies,  for  instance,  and  the  Arabs. 
Necho  is  mentioned  in  Scripture  as  having  defeated 
and  slain  King  Josiah  at  Megiddo  on  his  way  to 
attack  the  Assyrians.  Herodotus  briefly  notices  the 
victory,  but  calls  the  place  Magdolus,  after  which  lie 
says  that  Necho  took  the  city  of  Cadytis,  supposed 
to  be  either  Jerusalem  or  Gaza.  In  a  subsequent 
expedition,  which  Herodotus  does  not  mention,  he 
himself  was  defeated  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  king  of 
Babylon,  and  lost  all  his  conquests.  He  was  succeeded 
by  his  son  Psammis,  and  his  grandson  Apries  (the 
Pharaoh-Hoplira  of  Jeremiah).  The  latter  had  a  long 
and  prosperous  reign ;  but  failing  in  an  attack  on  the 
Greek  city  of  Cyrene,  his  army  revolted  from  him,  and 
chose  Amasis,  an  officer  who  had  been  sent  to  reason 
with  them,  for  their  king.  Apries  on  this  armed  his 
Greek  mercenaries,  amounting  to  thirty  thousand  men, 
and  went  to  meet  the  revolted  Egyptians.  In  the  battle 
which  ensued  he  was  defeated  and  taken  prisoner  by 
Amasis,  who  finally  gave  him  up  to  his  former  subjects, 
with  whom  he  was  unpopular,  and  they  strangled  him. 
Amasis  was  a  coarse  but  humorous  character,  rathei 
proud  than  otherwise  of  his  low  origin.  Finding  that 
his  subjects  despised  him  for  it,  he  broke  up  a  golden 
foot-bath,  and  made  of  it  an  image  of  one  of  the  gods. 


EGYPT. 


61 


which  the  Egyptians  proceeded  to  worship.  He  then 
told  them  what  it  was  made  of,  adding  that  “■  his  own 
fortune  had  been  that  of  the  foot-pan  thus  anticipat¬ 
ing  the  adage  of  Burns — 

D  O 

“  The  rank  is  but  the  guinea-stamp, 

The  man’s  the  gowd  for  a’  that.” 

When  his  courtiers  reproved  his  undignified  revels 
in  his  hours  of  relaxation,  whereas  none  could  com¬ 
plain  of  his  inattention  to  business,  he  met  them  with 
the  proverb,  now  common  to  most  languages,  that  a 
how  becomes  useless  if  not  sometimes  unstrung.  His 
habits  were  certainly  open  to  remark.  To  find  money 
for  his  pleasures  before  he  came  to  the  throne,  he 
occasionally  took  to  highway  robbery.  The  oracular 
shrines  were  the  police-offices  of  those  times,  and  Amasis, 
like  other  thieves,  was  cited  in  such  cases  before  the 
nearest  oracle.  Some  of  them  would  acquit,  others 
find  him  guilty.  When  he  became  king,  he  honoured 
the  oracles  which  had  detected  him  very  highly, 
but  the  others  he  despised.  But  he  was  a  great  king, 
in  spite  of  his  failings  ;  and  Egypt  is  said  to  have 
prospered  more  under  him  than  under  any  of  his 
predecessors.  One  of  his  laws  was,  that  every  man 
should  appear  once  a-year  before  the  governor  of  his 
department,  and  prove,  on  pain  of  death,  that  he  was 
getting  an  honest  livelihood.  Herodotus  says  that  Solon 
borrowed  this  law  from  the  Egyptians,  and  that  it  was 
in  force  at  Athens  up  to  his  own  days.  If  this  be 
true,  it  fell  into  disuse  soon  after  his  time,  as  the 
Athenians  enjoyed  a  reputation  above  all  nations  in 
the  world  for  “gracefully  going  idle.”  We  may  at 
least  join  in  his  remark,  that  this  ordinance  of  Amasis 


03 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


was  “  a  most  excellent  custom,”  towards  which  our 
modern  civilisation  is  making  timid  approaches.  We 
shall  hear  of  this  king  again  in  connection  with  Polyc¬ 
rates,  the  despot  of  Samos. 

The  account  which  Herodotus  here  gives  of  the  kings 
of  Egypt,  however  interesting  and  entertaining,  must 
he  read  with  the  full  understanding  that  its  value  in 
a  historical  point  of  view  is  about  the  same  as  that  of 
Livy’s  popular  account  of  the  early  kings  of  Rome. 
He  was  unacquainted  vrith  the  Egyptian  language,  and 
though  the  priests  may  not  have  purposely  imposed 
upon  him,  he  had  to  depend  on  the  anecdotes  which 
came  to  him  through  the  medium  of  the  caste  of  drago¬ 
mans  who  were  settled  at  Memphis.  In  consequence 
of  this,  the  consecutiveness  and  general  symmetry  of 
his  account  only  serves  to  conceal  some  palpable  mis¬ 
statements.  Perhaps  the  greatest  is  that  which  makes 
the  builders  of  the  Pyramids  later  in  time  than  the 
builders  of  the  temples  and  other  monuments.  Modem 
investigations  have  tended  to  give  great  weight  to  the 
authority  of  a  native  chronicler,  spoken  of  with  much 
respect  by  early  Christian  writers,  but  who  afterwards 
fell  into  disrepute — Manetho,  the  high  priest  in  the 
days  of  Ptolemy  Philadelphia.  His  record  is  utterly 
fatal  to  the  main  facts  of  the  account  given  by  He¬ 
rodotus.  After  dynasties  of  gods  and  heroes  which 
reigned  more  than  sixteen  thousand  years,  he  brings 
us  to  the  builders  of  the  Pyramids,  whom  Herodotus 
places  at  a  late  period  of  his  history,  perhaps  because 
his  Greek  informants  first  became  acquainted  with  the 
monuments  at  Memphis  itself.  He  was  probably  fur¬ 
nished  with  two  distinct  lists  of  kings,  both  to  a  great 
extent  mythical,  which  he  took  to  be  separate  and 


EGYPT. 


03 


successive  dynasties.  Cheops  is  almost  certainly  iden¬ 
tical  with  Menes,  the  first  human  king  of  Herodotus, 
in  whose  time  was  effected  the  canalisation  of  the 
Delta.  He  is  the  traditional  builder  of  the  Great 
Pyramid,  and  Chemmis  (the  Sun)  appears  as  one  of  his 
titles,  at  once  connecting  him  with  the  sun-worship. 
The  Pyramids  are  supposed  to  have  been  built  before 
the  time  of  Abraham,  with  the  Pharaoh  of  whose  times 
Aelithoes  of  the  11th  dynasty  has  been  identified.  The 
name  Pharaoh  itself  continues  the  title  assumed  by 
Cheops,  in  its  meaning  of  ‘‘children  of  the  sun.” 

The  Mycerinus  of  Herodotus  is  found  to  resolve  him¬ 
self  into  two  kings,  the  Mencheres  who  built  the  Pyra¬ 
mids,  and  another  much  later  king,  of  whom  the  story 
of  turning  night  into  day  is  told  ;  a  legend  which  may 
have  originated  in  the  torch-light  festival  of  Osiris  and 
Isis.  Sesostris  also  resolves  himself  into  two  kings — 
Sethos,  the  great  engineer  and  builder,  and  Rameses  II., 
the  great  conqueror  whose  victories  are  recorded  in  the 
temples  at  Karnak  and  Luxor,  and  whose  fallen  statue  at 
Luxor  is  the  largest  in  the  world.  After  him  came  Men- 
ephthes  or  Amenonoph,  who  has  been  identified  with  the 
Pharaoh  of  Exodus.  The  Shishak  of  Scripture  has  been 
confounded  with  Sesostris,  but  he  came  far  too  late,  and 
is  now  identified  with  one  Sesorchis.  But  the  identi¬ 
fication  of  any  of  these  kings  is  as  yet  very  uncertain. 

Amongst  other  stories  in  the  second  book  of  Herod¬ 
otus  is  one  not  quite  presentable  to  the  general  reader, 
about  a  Greek  beauty  of  doubtful  repute,  named  Rhod- 
opis  (“  Rosy-cheek  ”),  who  had  been  brought  as  a  slave 
to  Egypt,  and  who  was  said  to  have  built  one  of  the 
Pyramids.  Strabo  embellishes  her  history  by  telling 
how,  when  this  lady  was  bathing,  an  eagle  cariied  off 


64 


THE  111  STORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


one  of  her  sandals,  and  deposited  it  before  the  king  of 
Egypt’s  throne,  who  was  so  struck  by  the  suggested 
beauty  of  the  foot  which  it  fitted,  that  he  sent  for 
her  and  made  her  his  queen.  Such  is  the  venerable 
antiquity  of  the  story  of  Cinderella. 

It  is  remarkable  that  Herodotus  says  nothing  about 
the  Great  Sphinx,  which  strikes  all  modern  travellers  so 
forcibly,  and  which  plays  so  prominent  a  part  in  the  le¬ 
gends  of  the  Greek  Thebes.  He  must  have  seen  it,  but 
may  have  thought  it  (as  he  did  other  things  in  this  mys¬ 
terious  country)  “too  sacred  to  mention.”  Its  composite 
form  is  supposed  to  be  emblematic  of  Nature,  and  con¬ 
nected  in  some  wav  with  the  inundations  of  the  Nile. 

*j 

This  second  book  of  Herodotus  brings  the  history  of 
Egypt  as  an  independent  power  to  a  close.  It  is  an  in¬ 
exhaustibly  rich  mine  of  historical,  arch  geological,  and 
mythological  wealth,  on  whose  endless  shafts  and  gal¬ 
leries  modern  discovery  is  ever  throwing  some  new  light. 
Formerly  the  deciphering  of  the  hieroglyphic  writing,  in 
which  all  Egyptian  sacred  records  were  kept,  was  looked 
upon  as  all  but  hopeless,  but  since  the  key  was  supplied 
by  the  discovery  of  the  famous  Rosetta  stone,  which  bore 
a  Greek  translation  of  its  hieroglyphic  inscription,  scien¬ 
tific  patience  has  been  abundantly  rewarded.  Religion 
is  essentially  conservative,  and  older  dialects  and  char¬ 
acters  are  continued  in  her  service  long  after  they  have 
been  superseded  in  secular  use.  We  may  cite  as  an 
example  the  Church  Sclavonic  dialect  of  the  north,  so 
valuable  to  philologists ;  the  Sanscrit  of  India ;  the 
Latin  still  in  use  in  the  Roman  Catholic  ritual.  Even 
in  England  we  still  use  archaic  characters  for  the  in¬ 
scriptions  in  our  churches,  but  this  is  no  doubt  partly 
because  of  their  greater  picturesqueness. 


CHAPTER  IY. 


CAMBYSES. 

“  The  race  of  mortal  Man  is  far  too  weak 
To  grow  not  dizzy  on  unwonted  heights.” 

— Goethe,  “  Iphigenia.” 

As  soon  after  the  death  of  Cyrus  as  the  Persian  arms 
were  at  liberty,  we  find  them  directed  against  Egypt. 
The  former  alliance  of  that  country  with  Lydia  might 
seem  an  adequate  cause  for  the  invasion,  but  it  is  too 
prosaic  for  the  taste  of  Herodotus.  He  makes  Cam- 
byses,  the  son  of  Cyras,  march  against  Amasis  because 
he  had  practised  on  him  a  deceit  something  like  that 
of  Laban  towards  Jacob,  bv  sending  him  as  a  wife  the 
daughter  of  the  late  king,  Apries,  instead  of  his  own. 
Cambyses  was,  at  all  events,  no  safe  subject  for  a  prac¬ 
tical  joke,  and  Amasis  might  have  found  to  his  cost 
that  he  had  jested  once  too  often. 

Having  purchased  a  safe-conduct  through  the  desert 
by  swearing  brotherhood  with  the  chief  of  the  Arabs,* 
— by  a  process  much  the  same  as  that  described  by 
modern  African  travellers,  which  consisted  in  the  con¬ 
tracting  parties  mixing  a  little  of  their  blood, t — Cam- 

*  “The  safe-conduct  granted  by  the  chief  of  the  Bedouins,” 
saj's  Kinglake,  “is  never,  I  believe,  violated.” 

+  “  Several  of  our  men  made  brotherhood  with  the  Wezecs,  ami 
A.  c.  vol.  iii. 


s 


66 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


byses  set  out  for  Egypt.  But  death  had  put  Amasis 
beyond  the  reach  of  all  enemies,  and  his  son  Psammen- 
itus  now  reigned  in  his  stead.  Dire  misfortunes  had 
been  portended  to  the  country  by  the  unusual  pheno¬ 
menon  of  a  shower  of  rain  at  Thebes.  After  an  obsti¬ 
nate  battle,  Psammenitus  was  utterly  routed.  Herodo¬ 
tus  went  afterwards  over  the  field,  and  saw  there  the 
bones  of  the  Persians  lying  in  one  heap,  and  those  of 
the  Egyptians  in  another.  He  remarked  that  the  skulls 
of  the  former  might  be  broken  by  a  pebble,  while  those 
of  the  latter  resisted  even  a  large  stone.  This  observa¬ 
tion  he  afterwards  verified  by  personal  inspection  of 
another  battle-field,  where  a  Persian  force  was  subse¬ 
quently  defeated  by  the  revolted  Egyptians  under 
Inaros.  He  attributes  the  difference  to  the  Egyptians 
going  bareheaded  in  the  sun,  while  the  Persians  wore 
turbans.  The  Persians  followed  up  their  victory  by 
the  capture  of  the  city  of  Memphis  and  of  Psammen¬ 
itus  himself,  on  which  occasion  our  author  introduces 
one  of  his  characteristic  pathetic  stories.  Cambyses 
wishing,  says  Herodotus,  “to  try  the  spirit”  of  his  royal 
prisoner,  ordered  Psammenitus  and  some  of  the  captive 

the  process  between  Bombay  and  the  sultan’s  son,  Keerenga, 
may  be  mentioned.  My  consent  having  been  given,  a  mat  is 
spread,  and  a  confidential  party  or  surgeon  attends  on  each. 
All  four  squat,  as  if  to  have  a  game  at  whist ;  before  them  are 
two  clean  leaves,  a  little  grease,  and  a  spear-head  ;  a  cut  is  made 
under  the  ribs  of  the  left  side  of  each  party,  a  drop  of  blood  put 
on  a  leaf  and  exchanged  by  the  surgeons,  who  rub  it  with  butter 
twice  into  the  wound  with  the  leaf,  which  is  now  torn  in  pieces 
and  strewn  over  the  “brothers’  ”  heads.  A  solemn  address  is 
made  by  the  older  of  the  attendants,  and  they  conclude  the 
ceremony  bv  rubbing  their  own  sides  with  butter,  shaking 
hands,  and  wishing  each  other  success.” — Grant’s  ‘Walk  through 
Africa,  p.  108. 


CA  MB  YSES. 


67 


nobles  to  be  brought  out  to  the  gates  of  the  city.  Then 
he  caused  the  deposed  king’s  daughter,  and  those  of  tlio 
nobles,  to  be  led  past,  in  the  dress  of  slaves,  carrying 
pitchers  on  their  heads.  The  nobles  wept  at  the  sight, 
but  Psammenitus  only  bowed  his  head.  Next  fol¬ 
lowed  his  son  and  two  thousand  other  young  Egyptians, 
going  to  execution  with  ropes  round  their  necks.  The 
people  of  Memphis  had  torn  limb  from  limb  the  crew 
of  a  ship  which  Cambyses  had  sent  with  a  summons  to 
surrender,  and  this  was  his  reprisal — ten  for  every  man 
murdered.  The  nobles  again  wept  and  wailed  loudly, 
but  Psammenitus  comported  himself  as  before.  P>ut 
when  he  saw  one  of  his  former  boon  companions,  an 
old  man  now  reduced  to  beggary,  asking  alms  from  the 
soldiers,  then  his  grief  broke  forth  in  tears,  and  he  beat 
himself  on  the  head.  Cambyses  was  amazed  that  he 
should  weep  at  the  fate  of  his  friend,  and  not  at  that  of 
his  daughter  or  son,  and  sent  to  ask  him  the  reason  of 
his  strange  conduct.  Psammenitus  answered,  “  0  son  of 
Cyrus,  mine  own  misfortunes  were  too  great  for  tears.” 
Cambyses  was  sufficiently  touched  to  order  the  life  of 
the  young  prince  to  be  spared,  but  the  reprieve  came 
too  late.  But  from  that  time  Psammenitus  was  treated 
better,  and  might,  as  Herodotus  thinks,  had  he  shown 
more  tact,  have  been  appointed  governor  of  Egypt, 
since  it  was  the  Persian  custom  thus  to  honour  fallen 
princes,  even  giving  the  kingdoms  of  rebel  vassals  to 
their  sons.*  But  he  was  unwise  enough  to  plot  rebel- 

*  "We  have  notable  instances  of  this  habit  in  Eastern  mon- 
archs  recorded  in  Scripture.  Jehoiakim  is  made  king  instead  of 
his  brother  Jehoahaz,  by  Pharaoh- Nechoh  (2  Kings  xxiii.  34)  ; 
Mattaniah  instead  of  his  nephew  Jehoiachin,  by  Nebuchadnezzar 
(2  Kings  xxiv.  17). 


68 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


lion,  and  Cambyses,  discovering  this,  put  him  to 
death. 

And  now  the  son  of  Cyrus  entered  on  that  career  of 
impiety  which  was  certain  to  have  an  evil  end.  He 
had  the  body  of  his  enemy  Amasis,  who  had  escaped 
his  vengeance  while  living,  torn  from  its  tomb,  scourged, 
and  committed  to  the  flames  —  an  act  horrible  to 
the  Persians,  who  worshipped  fire ;  horrible  to  the 
Egyptians,  who  looked  upon  that  element  as  a  devour¬ 
ing  monster  to  whom  it  was  impious  to  give  their 
dead.  Then,  according  to  Greek  poetical  justice,  he 
was  seized  by  infatuation.  He  planned  wild  expeditions 
■ — one  against  “  the  Long-lived  ”  Ethiopians,  who  dwelt 
far  away  to  the  south,  and  who  might  perhaps  be  iden¬ 
tified  with  the  modern  Abyssinians  (Heeren  thinks, 
with  the  Somalis)  by  certain  characteristics,-  such  as 
tall  stature,  regular  though  black  features,  and  a  great 
love  of  animal  food.  Whoever  they  were,  they  are  the 
subject  of  one  of  our  author’s  most  characteristic  narra¬ 
tives.  Cambyses  sent  envoys  to  them — men  of  the 
tribe  of  “  Eish  -  eaters,”  who  knew  their  language  — 
with  presents  for  their  king ;  a  purple  robe,  a  collar 
and  armlets  of  gold,  and  a  cask  of  palm-wine,  tokens 
of  his  goodwill,  as  “the  things  in  which  he  himself 
most  delighted.”  The  Ethiopian  king — who  was 
elected  for  his  stature  and  beauty  —  made  answer 
almost  in  the  words  of  Joseph  to  his  brethren  : 
“  Surely  to  search  out  the  land  are  ye  come  hither.” 
He  asked  how  the  purple  robe  was  made ;  and  when 
they  explained  the  mystery  of  the  dye,  he  said  that 
the  Persians’  garments,  like  themselves,  were  deceitful. 
When  told  the  purpose  of  the  golden  collar  and  armlets, 
he  chose  to  consider  them  as  fetters,  and  remarked  that 


Cu.m  BYSES. 


60 


“  tlie  Ethiopians  made  them  stronger.”  In  fact,  as 
Herodotus  declares,  the  envoys  saw  men  afterwards  in 
prison  actually  wearing  fetters  of  a  metal  which  was 
there  so  plentiful.  Only  the  wine  he  highly  approved 
of,  and  asked  what  the  king  of  Persia  ate,  and  how 
long  men  lived  in  that  country.  When  he  heard  that 
com  was  the  staple  food,  and  that  it  grew  out  of  the 
earth,  and  that  eighty  years  was  considered  a  long  life, 
he  replied  that  he  did  not  wonder  at  the  king’s  dying 
so  young  if  he  “ate  dirt,”  and  that  nothing,  he  was 
persuaded,  could  keep  him  alive  even  so  long,  except 
that  excellent  liquor.  He  sent  hack  in  return  an 
unstrung  bow,  with  advice  that,  when  the  Persians 
could  find  a  man  to  bend  it,  they  should  then  think 
of  attacking  the  “Long-livers.” 

Against  this  distant  tribe,  however,  the  Persian  king 
set  out  with  a  vast  army,  without  bestowing  a  thought 
on  his  commissariat.  Before  he  had  accomplished  a 
fifth  of  the  distance  the  provisions  failed,  but  he  still 
pushed  on.  The  army  fed  on  the  sumpter-beasts  till 
they  were  exhausted  ;  then  on  herbs  and  grass,  till 
they  came  to  the  sandy  desert,  where  vegetation 
ended.  At  last,  when  he  heard  of  cannibalism  in 
the  ranks,  Cambvses  thought  it  was  time  to  return  : 
but  he  succeeded  in  bringing  back  only  a  small 
remnant  of  his  host.  Another  expedition,  sent  against 
the  temple  of  Ammon,  in  the  great  Oasis,  fared  even 
worse,  for  no  news  came  of  it  more.  It  perished,  our 
author  thinks,  in  a  sandstorm — more  probably  from 
want  of  water.  But  Cambyses’  heart  was  hardened. 
When  he  returned  from  his  ill-starred  march,  he  found 
the  Egyptians  holding  high  festival.  This  greatly 
incensed  him,  for  he  thought  they  were  rejoicing  at 


70 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


his  defeat.  But  they  were  innocently  celebrating  the 
incarnation  of  their  national  god  Apis  or  Epaphus, 
who  was  said  to  appear  from  time  to  time  in  the  simili¬ 
tude  “of  a  calf  that  eateth  hay/’  and  whose  “avatar” 
in  that  form  was  denoted  by  certain  sacred  marks 
known  to  his  priests.  Cambyses  was  still  more 
angry  when  he  heard  the  real  cause  of  this  national 
jubilee  :  he  had  the  priests  scourged  all  round, 
forbade  the  people  to  rejoice  on  pain  of  death,  and, 
to  crown  all,  fell  on  the  sacred  beast  and  wounded 
him  with  his  dagger,  so  that  he  pined  away  and  died. 
From  this  precise  date,  as  the  Egyptians  averred, 
the  madness  of  Cambyses  took  a  more  decided  char¬ 
acter.  But  his  acts,  however  unaccountable  to  a 
Greek  mind,  seem  to  have  been  little  more  than  those 
of  an  Eastern  despot  of  fierce  passions  and  naturally 
cruel  disposition.  First  he  had  his  brother  Smerdis 
put  to  death,  and  then  he  killed  his  sister  because  she 
mourned  for  Smerdis.  He  had  sent  this  brother  back 
to  Persia  because  he  excited  his  jealousy  by  being  the 
only  Persian  who  could  just  move  the  Ethiopian’s 
bow;  and  then,  having  dreamed  that  he  saw  Smerdis 
sitting  on  his  throne  and  touching  heaven  with  his 
head,  he  sent  a  nobleman  named  Prexaspes  to  Susa, 
who  slew  him  according  to  his  instructions.  The 
story  of  the  murder  of  the  sister  was  differently  told 
by  the  Persians  and  Egyptians.  The  former  said 
that  Cambyses,  in  the  presence  of  his  sister,  had  set 
a  puppy  to  fight  a  lion-cub.  The  dog  was  getting  the 
worst  of  it,  when  another  of  the  same  litter  broke  the 
cord  that  tied  him,  and  came  “to  help  his  brother,” 
and  both  of  them  together  mastered  the  young  lion. 
Cambyses  was  amused,  but  his  sister  wept,  ami  said  that 
she  could  not  but  think  of  Smerdis,  who  had  no  brother 


C A  MB  YSES. 


71 


to  help  him.  For  this  speech  he  killed  her.  The  Egyp¬ 
tians  said  that  the  pair  were  seated  at  table,  when  the 
sister  took  a  lettuce,  and,  stripping  its  leaves  off,  asked 
Camhyses  whether  it  looked  better  with  its  leaves  off  or 
on  1  He  answered,  “  With  its  leaves  on.”  “  Then  why,” 
said  she,  “  didst  thou  strip  of  its  leaves  the  stem  of 
Cyrus  ?  ”  A  furious  lack  which  followed  this  remark 
was  the  cause  of  her  death.  In  fact,  Camhyses  had 
now  become  dangerous  to  all  about  him.  Croesus,  whom 
he  had  brought  with  him  to  Egypt,  had  more  than  one 
narrow  escape.  On  one  occasion  officers  were  sent 
to  put  him  to  death,  but  they,  knowing  their  master’s 
moods,  only  pretended  to  have  done  it,  and  produced 
Croesus  alive  as  soon  as  Camhyses  was  heard  to  regret 
the  order.  He  was  well  pleased  that  his  friend  had  not 
been  killed,  but  the  disobedience  cost  the  guards  their 
lives.  Another  time  he  shot  the  son  of  Prexaspes 
through  the  heart  to  prove  the  steadiness  of  his  hand, 
merely  because  the  father  had  told  him,  in  answer  to  a 
•question,  that  the  Persians  said  he  was  rather  too  fond 
of  wine.  Probably  for  some  similar  offensive  remark  he 
buried  up  to  their  necks  twelve  of  his  nobles — a  cruel 
process  still  practised  in  the  East  under  the  name  of 
“  tree-planting.”  *  And  he  grew  more  and  more  profane. 
He  opened  tombs  and  unrolled  mummies  like  a  modern 

*  “  Feti-  Ali-Shah  once  sent  for  Astra-chan,  one  of  liis  cour¬ 
tiers,  and  with  an  appearance  of  great  friendship  took  him  round 
his  garden,  showing  him  all  its  beauties.  When  he  had  finished 
the  circuit,  he  appealed  to  Astra-chan  to  know  ‘  what  his  garden 
still  lacked?’  ‘Nothing,’  said  the  courtier;  ‘it  is  quite 
perfect.’  ‘I  think  differently,’  replied  the  king;  ‘I  must 
decidedly  plant  a  tree  in  it.’  Astra-chan,  who  knew  the  king’s 
meaniug  only  top  well,  fell  at  his  feet  and  begged  his  life,  which 
he  obtained  only  at  the  price  of  surrendering  to  the  king  the 
lady  to  whom  lie  was  betrothed.” — Rawlinson,  ii.  361,  note. 


72 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


virtuoso.  He  made  sport  of  the  pigmy  images  of  Pthah, 
or  Vulcan,  whose  ludicrous  ugliness  must  have  presented 
the  grim  humorist  with  an  irresistible  temptation,*  and 
other  sacred  idols  he  burnt.  Herodotus  expresses  him¬ 
self  much  shocked  at  all  this;  but  he  might  have 
known  that  the  Persians  were  in  general  iconoclasts. 
It  is  possible  that  Cambyses  was  inspired  with  the 
same  destructive  zeal  which  induced  the  more  modern 
Puritans  to  clear  away  the  saints  from  the  niches  of 
our  cathedrals.  But  as  a  Greek,  our  author  would 
sympathise  with  the  Egyptians.  It  is  hard  for  us  to 
judge  how  far  some  of  the  cruelties  reported  of  Cam¬ 
byses  may  have  been  the  invention  of  the  outraged 
priests.  He  has  recorded,  in  another  part  of  his  work, 
an  anecdote  which  illustrates  at  once  the  character  of 
Cambyses  and  the  general  incorruptibility  of  the  royal 
judges  of  Persia.  One  of  these,  named  Sisamnes,  was 
found  to  have  accepted  bribes.  Cambyses,  with  the 
facetious  cruelty  so  common  to  tyrants  of  his  type, 
had  him  flayed,  and  his  skin  stretched  over  the  seat' 
which  he  had  occupied  while  administering  the  law. 
He  then  appointed  his  son  to  the  vacant  post,  charging 
him  at  the  same  time  never  to  forget  “  on  what  kind 
of  cushion  he  was  sitting/’ 

The  modern  reader  will  agree  with  Herodotus  that 
it  is  at  least  right  to  treat  with  delicacy  the  peculiai 
usages  of  others.  Aristotle  quotes  one  of  his  anecdotes 
to  illustrate  the  opinion  of  those  who  held  that,  all 
right  and  wrong  were  conventional.  King  Darius 
Hystaspes  called  certain  Greeks  into  his  presence, 
and  asked  them  what  they  would  take  to  eat  their 
dead  fathers'?  They  said  that  they  would  do  it  foi 

*  See  the  woodcuts  and  note,  Rawlinson,  ii.  434- 


CA  MBYSES. 


73 


no  consideration  whatever.  Then  he  ashed  a  certain 
tribe  of  Indians  what  they  would  take  not  to  eat  the 
bodies  of  their  fathers,  but  to  burn  them  like  the 
Greeks'?  They  cried  aloud,  and  begged  him  not  to 
blaspheme.  So  Sir  John  Lubbock,  in  his  £  Prehistoric 
Times/  relates  that  the  Tahitians  think  it  indecent 
to  dine  in  company ;  and  that  as  soon  as  a  child  is 
born  he  is  accounted  the  head  of  his  family,  and  takes 
precedence  of  his  father.  And  the  tyranny  of  public 
opinion  in  matters  indifferent,  of  which  we  complain 
so  often,  finds  its  strongest  exemplification  among  the 
semi-brutal  savages  of  Australia. 

The  death  of  Smerdis  had  come  to  the  knowledge  of 
but  few  persons  in  Persia,  and  while  Cambyses  was 
absent  in  Egypt,  tbe  priest-caste  of  the  Magi  made  a 
bold  attempt  at  a  revolution.  It  is  probable  that 
under  Cyrus  and  Cambyses  this  caste,  with  their 
peculiar  tenets,  had  been  discouraged.  A  certain 
Magian,  who  was  a  kind  of  groom  of  the  palace, 
had  a  brother  who  resembled  greatly  the  dead  Smer¬ 
dis,  and  who  (according  to  Herodotus)  bore  the  same 
name.*  Patizethes  seated  this  brother  on  the  throne, 
and  sent  out  a  proclamation  that  henceforth  all  men 
were  to  do  homage  to  Smerdis  the  son  of  Cyrus,  and 
no  longer  to  Cambyses.  When  Cambyses  heard  of 
this,  he  thought  that  Prexaspes  had  not  done  his 
errand,  and  that  it  was  really  his  brother  Smerdis  who 
had  revolted  against  him ;  but  Prexaspes  satisfied  him 
that  his  orders  had  been  duly  executed,  and  that  this 

*  The  Beliistun  inscription  gives  the  name  as  Gomates,  and 
does  not  speak  of  two  brothers.  Mr  Rawlinson  seems  to  prove 
dearly  that  the  revolution  was  a  religious  one,  though  nothing 
to  that  effect  appears  in  Herodotus. — See  his  Essay,  iii.  548. 


74 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


was  a  usurper  personating  the  dead  prince.  He  was 
at  once  struck  by  remorse,  seeing  that  his  fratricide 
had  been  useless,  for  his  dream  was  so  far  fulfilled 
that  a  man  called  Smerdis  sat  on  his  throne ;  and  he 
prepared  to  march  at  once  in  person  to  Susa  to  quell 
the  rebellion.  As  he  was  mounting  his  horse,  the 
knob  of  his  sword  sheath  fell  off,  and  the  bare  point 
of  the  weapon  pierced  his  thigh,  exactly  as  he  had 
pierced  with  his  dagger  the  god  Apis.  His  wound 
brought  him  to  his  senses,  and  he  solemnly  conjured 
the  Persian  nobles  to  prevent  the  empire  from  pass¬ 
ing  to  the  Medes,  confessing  that  he  had  killed  his 
brother  Smerdis,  and  that  therefore  the  present  occu¬ 
pant  of  the  throne  must  be  an  impostor.  The  wound¬ 
ed  limb  soon  mortified,  and  Cambyses  died  in  Egypt, 
leaving  no  issue.  Before  his  death,  lie  asked  the  name 
of  the  village  where  he  lav.  He  was  answered  that 
it  was  called  “  Ecbatana.”  Then  he  knew  that  he 
should  die ;  for  an  oracle  had  long  ago  predicted  that 
he  should  die  at  Ecbatana, — which  he  naturally  took 
to  be  his  own  town  in  Media.  The  coincidence  with 
the  death  of  our  own  Henry  IY.  in  the  “Jerusalem 
chamber”  is  very  curious. 

“  It  hath  been  prophesied  to  me  many  years 
I  should  not  die  but  in  Jerusalem, 

Which  vainly  I  supposed  the  Holy  Land  ; — 

But  bear  me  to  that  chamber  ;  there  I’ll  lie, — 

In  that  Jerusalem  shall  Harry  die.”* 

*  ‘  Henry  IV.,’  Part  2,  Act  iv.  sc.  4. 


CHAPTER  V 


DARIUS. 

“  In  tlie  theatre  of  the  World 
The  people  are  actors  all. 

One  doth  the  sovereign  monarch  play  ; 

And  him  the  rest  obey.” — Calderon. 

The  jealous  hatred  which  Cambyses  bore  to  his 
brother  Smerdis  was  so  well  known,  that  the  Persians 
did  not  believe  his  dying  declaration  that  the  person 
who  had  seized  his  throne  was  an  impostor.  They 
accepted  him  as  the  true  Smerdis,  son  of  Cyrus.  Such 
impostures  are  possible  enough  in  a  credulous  age.  A 
false  Demetrius  plays  an  important  part  in  the  history 
of  Russia.  There  were  many  who  disbelieved  the  fact 
jf  the  two  English  princes  having  been  smothered  in 
the  Tower ;  and  many  more,  at  quite  a  recent  date, 
have  believed  that  Louis  XVII.  escaped  his  jailers, 
and  grew  up  to  manhood.  The  secluded  life  of  an 
Eastern  monarch  would  give  such  an  imposture  addi¬ 
tional  chances  of  success. 

The  Magian  usurper  reigned  for  eight  months  under 
the  name  of  Smerdis,  giving  great  satisfaction  to  most 
of  his  subjects,  for  under  him  “  the  empire  was  peace.” 
He  remitted  the  heaviest  taxes,  and  enforced  no  raili- 


76 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


tary  conscription.  At  last  his  imposture  came  to  light. 
Otanes,  a  Persian  nobleman,  whose  daughter  was  one 
of  his  wives,  was  informed  by  her  that  her  husband 
had  no  ears.  Now  the  Magian  was  known  to  have  lost, 
his  for  some  offence  in  the  time  of  Cyrus.*  The  result 
of  this  revelation  was,  that  Otanes  headed  the  famous 
conspiracy  of  the  seven  nobles,  of  whom  Darius,  the 
son  of  Hystaspes,  sprung  from  a  collateral  branch  of  the 
royal  family,  and  probably  the  next  legal  heir,  was 
one.  While  they  were  concocting  their  plan  of  attack, 
a  tragical  event  happened  which  made  immediate  action 
necessary.  The  Magians,  knowing  how  cruelly  Prex- 
aspes  had  been  treated  by  Cambyses,+  thought  it 
their  interest  to  conciliate  him,  and  prevailed  upon 
him  to  mount  on  a  tower  of  the  palace-wall,  and  make 
a  speech  to  the  people  below,  who  had  grown  suspicious, 
to  the  effect  that  their  present  king  was  the  true  Smer- 
dis,  the  son  of  Cyrus.  But  in  this  they  made  as  fatal  a 
mistake  as  Shakespeare’s  Brutus  and  Cassius  did  when 
they  allowed  Mark  Antony  to  speak  at  Caesar’s  funeral. 
Prexaspes,  instead  of  lying  to  please  the  Magians,  pro¬ 
claimed  aloud  the  real  state  of  the  case,  and  then  threw 
himself  from  the  tower,  and  was  killed  on  the  spot. 

*  This  is  the  mildest  form  of  mutilation,  as  the  feature  seems 
more  ornamental  than  useful,  except  to  those  savage  tribes  in 
whom  the  muscle  that  moves  the  ear  is  developed.  It  was  prac¬ 
tised  in  England  as  late  as  the  seventeenth  century,  for  such 
offences  as  Nonconformity,  Petty  Treason,  Libel,  and  the  like. 
Prynne  is  a  well-known  instance.  It  is  common  now  in  Africa, 
and  is  said  to  give  the  head  the  look  of  a  barber’s  block,  but  to 
be  attended  with  no  great  inconvenience.  The  False  Smerdis, 
as  has  been  said,  never  went  abroad,  and  probably  wore  his 
turban  low  on  his  head. 

*t*  See  p.  71. 


DARIUS. 


77 


The  seven  conspirators  gained  the  presence  of  the 
false  king  and  his  brother  with  no  great  difficulty,  but 
within  they  met  with  such  resistance  that  two  were 
badly  wounded  before  they  succeeded  in  despatching 
them.  The  others  cut  off  the  Magians’  heads,  carried 
them  forth,  and  showed  them  to  the  populace.  A  gen¬ 
eral  massacre  of  the  Magian  caste  followed,  which  lasted 
till  the  night.  Few  of  them  survived  this  St  Bartho¬ 
lomew  of  Susa.  During  the  annual  festival  held  hence¬ 
forth  under  the  name  of  Magophonia,  which  we  might 
call  the  “  Median  Vespers,”  none  of  the  hated  class 
dared  be  seen  abroad,  though  tolerated  at  other  times. 

The  seven  noblemen,  according  to  Herodotus,  now 
resolved  themselves  into  a  debating  societv,  for  the 
purpose  of  discussing  different  forms  of  government. 
That  is  to  say,  he  here  avails  himself  of  an  author’s 
favourite  licence  to  propound  theories  of  his  own. 
His  sympathies  are  plainly  with  democracy,  but  his¬ 
torical  exigencies  obliged  him  to  admit  that  mon¬ 
archy  was  adopted.  They  agreed  that  one  of  the 
seven  should  be  king,  and  the  rest  his  peers,  having 
free  access  to  the  royal  presence  on  all  but  certain 
stated  occasions.  It  was  then  arranged  that  all  should 
ride  their  horses  to  an  open  place  at  sunrise,  and 
choose  as  king  the  man  whose  horse  was  the  first  to 
neigh.  This  was  really  an  appeal  to  the  Sun,  to  whom 
the  horse  was  sacred.  The  omen  fell  to  Darius,  by  the 
cunning  management  of  his  equerry,  and  he  was  at  once 
hailed  as  king.  When  he  was  established  in  tin* 
kingdom,  he  is  said  to  have  set  up  the  figure  of  a  man 
on  horseback,  with  a  commemorative  inscription.  The 
story  may  have  been  invented  subsequently,  to  account 
for  this  work  of  art,  as  often  happens. 


78 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


Most  valuable  light  lias  been  thrown  on  the  history 
of  Darius  by  the  discovery  of  the  great  Behistun  in* 
scription.  On  the  western  frontier  of  the  ancient 
Media  there  is  a  precipitous  rock  1700  feet  high, 
which  forms  a  portion  of  the  Zagros  chain,  separ¬ 
ating  the  table-land  of  Iran  from  the  valley  of  the 
Tigris  and  Euphrates.  The  inscription  can  oidy  bo 
reached  with  difficultv,  as  it  is  300  feet  from  the 
base  of  the  rock.  It  is  in  three  languages,  —  old 
Persian,  Babylonian,  and  Scythian, — executed,  accord¬ 
ing  to  Sir  H.  Bawlinson,  in  the  fifth  year  of  Darius, 
B.c.  516.  The  wedge-shaped  letters  of  the  Persian 
copy  were  deciphered  with  infinite  pains  by  this  great 
archaeologist.  Darius  mentions  in  it,  under  the  name 
of  Gaumata,  a  Magian  who  personated  Bardes  *  (as  lie- 
calls  him),  the  son  of  Cyrus,  and  says  that  he  slew  him 
by  the  help  of  Ormuzd,  the  Good  Spirit,  and  thus 
recovered  an  empire  that  belonged  to  his  own  family, 
restoring  to  the  Persians  the  religion  which  they  had 
lost  by  the  Magian  intrusion.  He  also  records  that 
after  this  he  was  engaged  in  quelling  a  general  revolt 
of  the  provinces.  The  main  facts  accord  with  those 
of  Herodotus,  though  there  is  some  difference  in  the  no¬ 
menclature.  The  end  of  the  inscription  invokes  a  curse 
on  any  one  who  might  injure  it,  and  this  has  probably 
tended  to  preserve  it ;  just  as  the  curse  on  Shakespeare’s 
monument,  at  Stratford-on-Avon,  may  have  conduced 


*  The  s,  whether  at  the  beginning  or  end  of  Persian  names, 
is  commonly  only  a  Greek  addition.  So  Bardy(a) — the  vowel 
being  pronounced  though  not  written — is  &merdis,  Gaumat(a) 
becomes  Gomates,  Vashtasp(a)  Hystaspes,  Sec. — See  Bawlinson, 
I.  27-29,  note. 


DARIUS. 


79 


to  prevent  officious  veneration  from  “  moving  his 
bones.” 

Darius  was  the  first  monarch  of  Persia  who  regulated 
the  revenues,  and  assigned  the  sum  that  each  satrapy- 
ought  to  pay  to  the.  royal  treasury.  This  caused  the 
haughty  Persian  aristocracy  to  say  of  him,  in  their  con¬ 
tempt  for  red  tape,  that  Cyrus  had  been  a  father  to  the 
state,  Cambyses  a  master,  but  Darius  was  “  a  huckster, 
who  would  make  a  gain  of  everything.” 

There  can  be  no  question  that  Herodotus  had  access, 
either  personally  or  through  friends,  to  the  royal 
records  of  Persia,  or  copies  of  them.  He  gives  a  com¬ 
plete  list  of  the  various  satrapies  into  which  the 
empire  was  divided,  of  the  several  subject  nations 
which  it  comprised,  and  the  form  and  amount  of  their 
tribute.  The  Persians  themselves,  it  must  be  remarked, 
like  the  Magyar  grandees  in  Hungary  formerly,  were 
exempt  from  taxation,  and  only  bound  to  military  ser¬ 
vice.  He  says  that  the  Indians,  the  most  numerous 
race  of  all,  paid  into  the  royal  treasury  three  hundred 
and  sixty  talents  in  gold  dust,  and  that  the  whole  an¬ 
nual  revenue  was  computed  at  fourteen  thousand  five 
hundred  and  sixty  talents,  besides  a  fraction — more 
than  three  millions  and  a  half  of  our  money.  Put  it 
must  be  considered  that  this  corresponds  to  the  modern 
Civil  List,  serving  only  to  defray  the  expenses  of  the 
Court.  These  Indians  must  not  be  supposed  to  be 
those  of  the  Peninsula,  but  rather  those,  of  Scinde  and 
the  Punjab.  The  gold  which  they  brought  into  the 
royal  treasury  was  said  to  come  from  a  great  desert  to 
the  eastward.  In  this  desert  there  were  ants — “  bigger 
than  foxes  ” — and  in  their  hills  the  gold  was  found. 
To  procure  it  the  gold-hunters  took  camels,  chiefly 


80 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS . 


females  with  young  ones,  with  which  they  proceeded 
to  the  'place  at  the  hottest  time  of  day,  when  the 
ants  were  in  their  holes,  filled  their  bags  with  the  aurif¬ 
erous  sand,  and  then  hurried  back  to  escape  the  pur¬ 
suit  of  the  ants ;  the  female  camels  leading  the  way,  as 
anxious  to  get  back  to  their  young  ones.  The  exist 
ence  of  these  gigantic  ants  has  been  asserted  by  com¬ 
paratively  modern  travellers,  but  it  seems  probable 
that  they  must  have  been  really  ant-eaters,  which 
burrowed  in  the  hills,  and  which  some  informants  of 
Herodotus  may  have  seen. 

Amongst  the  barbarian  tribes  in  dependence  on  Per¬ 
sia,  he  mentions  one  called  the  Padaeans,  who,  like  the 
Massagetae  before  mentioned,  allowed  none  of  their  sick 
to  die  a  natural  death.  The  horrible  story  is  quaintly 
told.  “  If  a  man  is  taken  ill,  the  men  put  him  to  death 
to  prevent  his  flesh  being  spoiled  by  his  malady.  He 
protests  loudly  that  he  never  felt  better  in  his  life  ;  but 
they  kill  and  eat  him  notwithstanding.  So,  if  a  woman 
is  ill,  the  women  who  are  her  friends  do  to  her  in  like 
manner.  (The  decent  division  of  the  sexes  is  worth  re¬ 
marking.)  If  any  one  reaches  old  age — a  very  uncom¬ 
mon  occurrence,  for  he  can  only  do  so  on  condition 
of  never  having  been  ill — they  sacrifice  him  to  the 
gods,  and  afterwards  eat  him.”  Marco  Polo,  the 
Venetian  traveller,  writing  about  1500,  found  the 
practice  existing  in  Sumatra,  where  the  relations  as¬ 
sembled  in  the  sick  man’s  house,  suffocated  him,  and 
then  ate  him,  as  he  describes  it,  “  in  a  convivial 
manner.”  Among  other  wonders  he  mentions  Arabian 
sheep  (the  forefathers,  no  doubt,  of  our  “  Cape  ”  breed) 
which  had  tails  three  cubits  long,  for  which  the  shep¬ 
herds  made  little  trucks  to  keep  them  off’  the  ground 


DARIUS. 


81 


— M  eacli  sheep  having  a  truck  of  his  own.”  The 
mention  of  remarkable  countries  and  productions  leads 
Herodotus  to  observe  that,  while  the  Greeks  have 
the  finest  climate,  as  inhabiting  the  middle  of  the 
earth,  yet  the  farthest  inhabited  regions  have  the 
finest  productions  —  tin,  amber,  and  gold  coming, 
for  instance,  from  the  ends  of  the  earth ;  but  in 
respect  of  horses  he  gives  the  palm  to  the  Nissean 
breed  of  Media.  Palgrave,  in  his  Travels  in  Arabia, 
speaks  of  the  horses  of  Ned j id  as  the  “cream  of  the 
cream”  of  equine  aristocracy. 

Soon  after  the  accession  of  Darius,  one  of  his  seven 
fellow-conspirators,  Intaphernes,  got  into  trouble.  lie 
insisted  on  seeing  the  king  during  his  hours  of  privacy, 
and  being  denied,  cut  off  the  noses  and  ears  of  two  of 
the  palace  officials,  and  hung  them  round  their  necks. 
This  displeased  the  king  so  much  that  he  condemned 
Intaphernes  and  all  the  males  of  his  family  to  death. 
Hut  Darius  was  touched  with  pity  by  the  lamentations 
of  the  wife  of  Intaphernes,  and  allowed  her  to  choose 
which  of  her  family  she  would  save.  She  chose  her 
brother  —  explaining,  when  the  king  showed  some 
astonishment  at  her  selection,  that  such  a  loss  could 
not  possibly  be  replaced,  her  father  and  mother  being 
dead.  Pleased  with  her  wit,  Darius  gave  her  the  life 
of  her  eldest  son  into  the  bargain.  Sophocles  adopts 
the  same  curious  sentiment  in  his  tragedy  of  Antigone. 
The  general  justice  of  Darius  would  lead  to  the  suspi¬ 
cion  that  the  crime  of  Intaphernes  was  of  the  nature 
of  high  treason,  otherwise  his  family  would  hardly 
have  been  involved  in  his  punishment. 

The  story  of  Democedes,  a  famous  surgeon  of  Cro- 
tona,  who  was  brought  to  Persia  as  a  slave,  is  intro- 

a.  c.  vol.  iii.  v  , 


82 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


duced  by  Herodotus  to  find  a  motive  for  the  attention 
of  the  king  being  called  to  Greece.  He  had  abundant 
reasons  besides,  as  the  history  shows ;  hut  our  author 
will  not  desert  the  theory  of  his  choice,  that  Woman 
is  the  mainspring  in  all  human  affairs.  Democedes 
had  got  into  favour  at  court  by  successful  treatment 
first  of  Darius  himself,  then  of  Atossa  the  favourite 
sultana.  Dor  this  latter  service  he  obtained  leave  to 
name  his  own  reward, — it  was,  to  be  allowed  to  visit 
his  home  ;  and,  as  Darius  wished  also  to  conquer 
Greece,  in  order  that  Atossa’s  desire  of  having  some 
of  “  those  Lacedaemonian  handmaidens  of  whom  she 
had  heard  so  much  ”  might  he  gratified,  Democedes 
was  sent  to  make  the  tour  of  Greece  and  its  colonies 
on  the  Italian  coast  with  a  party  of  spies.  When  he 
reached  his  native  Crotona,  he  chose  to  remain  there, 
and  was  assisted  by  his  fellow-townsmen  against  the 
Persians  who  tried  to  take  him  hack  with  them.  He 
hade  the  latter  tell  Darius  that  he  was  about  to  he 
married  to  the  daughter  of  Milo  the  wrestler ;  wishing 
the  king  to  know  that  he  was  a  man  of  some  mark  in 
his  own  country,  where — as  in  some  cases  amongst  us 
moderns — athletics  ranked  even  higher  than  science. 
These  spies  were  said  to  have  been  the  first  Persians 
who  visited  Greece. 

But  Darius  had  no  time  to  think  of  Greece  just 
then,  as  his  hands  were  full  with  a  revolt  in  Baby¬ 
lonia  and  other  provinces,  which  appears  to  have 
assumed  larger  proportions  than  those  known  to 
Herodotus.  Samos  was  the  first  state  which  was  un¬ 
fortunate  enough  to  draw  upon  itself  the  might  of 
the  Persian  arms.  The  cause  of  this  war  was  a  cloak. 
When  Cambyses  was  in  Egypt  with  his  army,  one 


DARIUS. 


83 


Syloson,  brother  of  Polycrates  of  Samos,  was  also 
there  in  exile.  He  appeared  one  day  at  Memphis  in 
a  scarlet  cloak,  to  which  Darius,  who  was  then  a  plain 
officer  of  the  royal  guards,  took  a  fancy,  and  asked  the 
wearer  to  name  his  price.  Syloson,  in  a  fit  of  gene¬ 
rosity,  begged  him  to  accept  it  as  a  present;  and  it 
had  no  sooner  been  accepted  than  he  repented  of  his 
good-nature.  As  matters  turned  out,  the  cloak  of 
Syloson  became  as  famous  as  that  of  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh.  Raleigh  “  spoilt  a  cloak  and  made  a  for¬ 
tune,”  by  spreading  out  his  for  Queen  Elizabeth  to 
walk  on;  Syloson,  by  giving  his  away,  led  the  way 
to  the  ruin  of  his  country.  Eor  when  Darius  came 
to  the  throne,  Syloson  introduced  himself  at  court  as 
the  hero  of  the  cloak,  and  Darius  asked  him  what  he 
could  do  for  him  in  return.  He  requested  to  be  put 
in  possession  of  his  late  brother’s  dominion  in  Samos. 
Moeandrius,  the  secretary  of  Polycrates,  who  was  at 
present  in  possession,  was  a  man  who  had  had  great¬ 
ness  thrust  upon  him.  When  Polycrates  was  murdered, 
the  secretary  found  himself  in  possession  of  Samos;  and 
wishing  to  be  “  the  justest  of  men,”  set  up  an  altar  to 
the  god  of  Freedom,  stipulating  only  that  he  should  be 
appointed  its  high  priest  as  a  condition  of  his  establish¬ 
ing  democracy.  Finding,  however,  that  the  “  Irre- 
concilables  ”  of  the  period  intended  to  prosecute  him 
for  embezzlement,  he  had  repented  of  his  republican 
generosity,  and  made  himself  master  of  the  citadel  and 
city.  Darius  now  sent  out  an  expedition  which  put 
his  friend  Syloson  in  possession  of  the  island,  but  not 
without  an  insurrection,'  which  led  to  a  terrible  mas¬ 
sacre  of  the  people. 

Babylon,  according  to  the  Beliistun  inscription,  ro 


84 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


volted  from  Darius  twice — once  in  the  first  and  again 
in  the  fourth  year  of  his  reign.  It  is  difficult  to  iden¬ 
tify  with  either  of  these  occasions  the  revolt  now 

«/ 

mentioned  by  Herodotus.  According  to  his  account, 
— which  in  this  instance  must  be  regarded  rather  as 
romance  than  history — so  determined  was  the  attempt, 
t  hat  the  Babylonians  strangled  most  of  their  women,  in 
order  to  reduce  their  population,  in  preparation  for  the 
expected  siege.  Darius  soon  sat  down  before  the  city, 
but  the  walls  defied  his  utmost  power;  and  the  besieged 
began  to  jeer  the  Persians,  telling  them  that  “  they 
would  never  take  the  city  until  mules  foaled.” 
However,  in  the  twentieth  month  of  the  siege,  a 
mule  belonging  to  Zopyrus,  a  Persian  of  rank,  did 
foal — an  event  perhaps  not  physically  impossible ; 
md  Zopyrus  thought  that  there  must  have  been 
something  providential  in  the  taunt  of  the  Baby¬ 
lonians,  and  that  now  the  city  might  be  taken.  The 
sequel,  whether  true  or  not  in  an  historical  sense,  is 
singularly  illustrative  of  the  chivalrous  self-devotion 
of  the  Persian  nobility  in  the  interests  of  their  mon¬ 
arch.  Zopyrus  proceeded  to  cut  off  his  own  nose  and 
ears,  dipt  his  hair  close,  got  himself  scourged,  and  in 
that  state  presented  himself  to  Darius,  and  laid  his 
plan  before  him.*  Darius  was  greatly  shocked  at  his 
retainer’s  maltreatment  of  himself,  but  as  it  was  too 
late  to  mend  the  matter,  made  the  proposed  arrange¬ 
ment.  Zopyrus  was  to  pretend  to  desert  to  the  Baby¬ 
lonians,  telling  them  that  Darius  had  so  ill-used  him 
because  he  had  advised  him  to  raise  the  siege.  The 
Babylonians  would  probably  believe  him,  and  intrust 

*  The  town  of  Gabii,  according  to  Livy,  was  taken  by  the 
Romans  by  a  very  similar  stratagem. 


DA  RIUS. 


85 


liim  with  the  command  of  a  division.  Darius  must 
then  he  willing  to  sacrifice  a  few  thousands  of  his 
worst  soldiers  to  give  the  Babylonians  confidence  in 
Zopyrus,  who,  when  he  had  the  game  safe  in  his  hands, 
would  open  the  gates  to  the  Persian  army.  All  turned 
out  according  to  the  programme.  Zopyrus  admitted 
the  Persians,  who  took  the  city.  Darius  did  his  best 
to  destroy  the  formidable  walls,  and  had  three  thou¬ 
sand  of  the  leading  rebels  impaled  ;  but  not  wish¬ 
ing  to  depopulate  the  city,  procured  from  the  neigh¬ 
bouring  nations  fifty  thousand  women  to  make  up  for 
those  whom  the  Babylonians  had  sacrificed.  As  for 
Zopyrus,  the  king  loaded  him  with  honours  and  made 
him  governor  of  Babylon ;  but  he  was  wont  to  say, — 
more  scrupulous  than  Henry  IY.  of  France,  who 
changed  his  religion  to  procure  the  surrender  of  the 
capital,  thinking  Paris  “  well  worth  a  mass,” — that  he 
would  rather  have  Zopyrus  mmmtilated  than  be  master 
of  twenty  Baby  Ions. 


CHAPTER  VL 


■'  • 


SCYTHIA. 

“  They  dwell 

Tn  wattled  slieds  on  rolling  cars  alo 
Accoutred  with  far-striking  archer} 

—  ^Eschylus,  “  Prometheus,” 

Haying  disposed  of  Babylon,  Darius  next  bethought 
himself  of  the  Scythians.  He  had  an  old  national 
grudge  against  this  restless  race,  for  having  overrun 
Asia  in  the  days  of  Cyaxares  the  Mede.  The  Behistun 
inscription  only  mentions  the  quelling  of  a  revolt  of 
the  Sacse,  or  Scythian  subjects  of  Persia;  but  Hero¬ 
dotus  speaks  of  an  expedition  on  a  vast  scale  against 
the  independent  nation. 

The  Scythians  were,  according  to  Herodotus,  a  people 
whose  seat  was  in  the  steppes  of  northern  Russia, 
more  widely  spread  than  the  present  Cossacks  of  the 
Don,  but  without  any  definite  boundaries,  sometimes 
encroaching  on  their  neighbours  and  sometimes  en¬ 
croached  upon  by  them,  like  the  Tartar  hordes  at 
this  day.  Their  name  has  been  supposed  by  some 
to  be  a  synonym  for  “  archers.”  Their  habits  were 
very  like  those  of  the  terrible  Huns  and  Magyars 
who  overran  part  of  Europe  in  the  last  agonies  of 


SCYTHIA. 


Home  and  afterwards  ;  but  the  difficulty  of  identify¬ 
ing  a  modern  and  civilised  race  with  an  ancient  and 
barbarous  one,  is  shown  by  the  dissimilarity  of  the 
handsome  and  chivalrous  Hungarians  with  their  hid¬ 
eous  and  unkempt  progenitors.  They  seem  to  have 
inherited  from  them  little  besides  their  love  of  horse¬ 
flesh — in  the  civilised  sense. 

That  the  Scythians  disappeared  from  history,  when 
history  itself  was  at  its  lowest  ebb,  is  no  proof  that 
they  exist  nowhere  now.  Their  language,  specimens 
of  which  are  given  by  Herodotus,  undoubtedly  be¬ 
longs  to  that  of  the  Indo-Germanic  family.  Their 
connection  with  the  Sacm  is  established.  Some  con¬ 
nect  the  Sacae  with  the  Saxons,  others  also  with  the 
Sikhs  of  northern  India.  It  would  indeed  be  strange 
if  it  were  discovered  from  critical  philology  and  ar¬ 
chaeology  that  the  English  were  pitted  against  their 
cousins  at  Sobraon,  Chilian  wall  ah,  and  Gujerat,  and 
recovered  India  through  their  aid  afterwards  ;  and  that 
some  of  our  Saxon  ancestors  were  those  who  fought 
best  on  the  losing  side  at  Marathon  and  Platoea.  Cer¬ 
tain  it  is  that  nearly  all  the  now  dominant  races  of 
mankind  seem  to  have  swarmed,  at  longer  or  shorter 
intervals,  from  some  mysterious  hive  about  or  beyond 
the  Caucasus.  History  records  some  of  the  waves  of 
their  western  or  eastern  progress.  Before  the  Scythi¬ 
ans  came  a  swarm  of  Cimmerians,  sweeping  over  Asia 
Minor  in  the  time  of  the  predecessors  of  Croesus.  Their 
name  is  still  retained  in  the  Crimea  and  Krim  Tartarv. 
They  reappear  as  Cimbri  in  the  latter  days  of  the  li<>- 
man  republic,  to  which  they  were  very  near  giving  the 
finishing  stroke.  Then  they  are  heard  of  in  Schleswick 
and  Jutland,  and  in  Wales  it  is  just  possible  that  at 


88 


T1IE  IU STORY  OF  HEROD  OTUS. 


the  present  day  they  call  themselves  Cymry.  Before 
their  coming  a  horde  of  Celts  or  Gauls  had  fallen  on 
Rome,  and  another  invaded  Greece  later  on,  leaving 
permanent  settlements  in  Lombardy  and  Asia  Minor. 

In  earlier  history  these  tidal  waves  of  population 
came  at  long  intervals,  so  that  the  damage  they  did 
was  reparable,  and  the  silt  they  left  behind  them  only 
strengthened  the  ground  ;  but  in  the  latter  days  of  the 
Roman  Caesars,  they  succeeded  one  another  so  quickly 
that  the  Empire  was  swamped,  and  when  the  disturb¬ 
ance  had  subsided,  the  earth  wore  a  face  that  was 
strange  and  new.  The  repentant  sons  of  those  savage 
children  of  the  night,  calling  themselves  English, 
French,  Germans,  and  so  forth,  are  now  endeavouring 
to  atone  for  their  fathers’  delinquencies  by  painfully 
diving  after  the  relics  of  lost  civilisations,  and  preserv 
ing  whatever  they  can  find  with  religious  veneration 
for  the  use  and  delight  of  ages  to  come.  By  degrees 
we  are  opening  up  Greece,  Italy,  Assyria,  Persia,  India, 
Egypt,  and  discovering  to  our  dismay  that  much  of  our 
boasted  civilisation  is  but  a  parody  on  what  prevailed 
centuries  or  millenniums  ago;  and  that,  with  all  our 
culture,  we  have  still  much  barbarism  to  unlearn. 

The  Scythians  described  by  Herodotus,  like  the 
Parthians  who  defeated  the  Roman  legions,  are  a  race 
of  archers  on  horseback.  From  them  the  Greeks  may 
have  derived  their  fables  of  the  Centaurs.  As  a  pas¬ 
toral  people,  they  were  generally  averse  to  the  tillage 
of  land,  and  moved  about  with  their  herds  from  one 
Peding-ground  to  another,  carrying  their  skin-covered 
huts  on  carts.  That  the  Sarmatians  were  allied  with 
them  appears  from  the  fable  which  traces  their  descent 

to  the  union  of  Scythians  with  Amazons,  those  wonder 

«/  / 


SCYTIIIA. 


89 


ful  viragos  whose  manlike  habits  are  still  kept  up  by 
tbe  women  of  some  Tartar  tribes. 

To  account  for  the  origin  of  the  Scythians,  Herodo¬ 
tus  gives  two  fables.  According  to  one,  a  certain 
Targitaus,  a  son  of  Jupiter,  and  grandson  by  his 
mother’s  side  of  the  river  Borysthenes  or  Dnieper, 
was  the  first  man  in  Scythia,  He  had  three  sons. 
At  first  they  were  all  equal,  when  there  fell  from 
heaven  four  implements  of  gold — a  plough,  a  yoke,  a 
battle-axe,  and  a  goblet.  The  eldest  approached  to 
take  them,  when  they  broke  out  iiko  flames,  and  he 
durst  not  touch  them.  The  second  was  rejected  in 
like  manner.  The  youngest  fared  better  :  he  was  able 
to  handle  the  gold  and  to  carry  it  off.  This  was  a 
sign  that  he  should  be  the  king.*  From  the  three 

*  A  somewhat  similar  story  was  told  to  Speke  by  Rumanika, 
king  of  Karagufe. 

“  Before  their  old  father  Dagara  died,  he  had  unwittingly 
said  to  the  mother  of  Rogero,  although  he  was  the  youngest 
born,  ‘  what  a  fine  king  he  would  make  ;  ’  and  tire  mother  in 
consequence  tutored  him  to  expect  to  succeed,  although  primo¬ 
geniture  is  the  law’  of  the  land,  subject  to  the  proviso,  which  was 
also  the  rule  with  the  ancient  Persians,  that  the  heir  must  have 
been  born  after  his  father’s  accession,  which  condition  was  here 
fulfilled  in  the  case  of  all  three  brothers.  .  .  .  Rumanika 

maintained  that  Rogero  was  entirely  in  the  w’rong,  not  only  be¬ 
cause  the  law7  was  against  him,  but  the  judgment  of  heaven 
also.  On  the  death  of  the  father,  the  three  sons,  who  only  could 
pretend  to  the  crowm,  had  a  small  mystic  drum  placed  before 
them  by  the  officers  of  state.  It  was  only  feather-weight  in 
leality,  but  being  loaded  with  charms,  became  too  heavy  foi 
those  not  entitled  to  the  crown  to  move.  Neither  of  the  other 
brothers  could  move  it  an  inch,  while  Rumanika  easily  lifted  b 
with  his  little  finger.  ...  He  (Rumanika)  moreover  said 
that  a  new*  test  had  been  invented  in  his  case  besides  the  ordeal 
of  lifting  the  drum.  The  supposed  rightful  heir  had  to  plant 


90 


TUE  III  STORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


brothers  sprang  the  three  Scythian  tribes — the  “  Koyal” 
Scythians  from  the  youngest.  According  to  the  other 
legend,  which  emanated  from  a  Greek  source,  Hercules, 
when  he  was  carrying  off  the  cattle  of  Geryon  (who 
lived  on  an  island  near  Cadiz  in  Spain),  came  to  Scythia, 
and  being  overcome  by  frost  and  fatigue,  wrapt  himself 
in  his  lion’s  skin,  and  fell  asleep.  When  he  awoke 
his  team  of  mares  had  disappeared.  He  wandered 
in  quest  of  them  till  he  came  to  a  country  called  the 
Bush.  Here  he  found  in  a  cave  a  strange  being,  half 
woman,  half  serpent,  who  detained  him  with  her  by 
holding  out  hopes  of  his  recovering  his  mares,  which 
she  had  caught  and  hidden.*  Three  sons  were  the 

himself  on  a  certain  spot,  when  the  land  on  which  he  stood  would 
rise  up  like  a  telescope  drawn  out  till  it  reached  the  skies.  If 
he  was  entitled  to  the  throne,  it  would  then  let  him  down  again 
without  harm  ;  but  if  otherwise,  collapse  and  dash  him  to  pieces. 
Of  course  as  he  survived  the  trial,  it  was  successful.  On  another 
occasion  a  piece  of  iron  was  found  in  the  ground,  about  the  shape 
and  size  of  a  carrot.  This  iron  could  not  be  extracted  by  any 
one  but  Kumanika  himself,  who  pulled  it  up  with  the  greatest 
ease.” — ‘Lake  Victoria;’  a  compilation  from  the  Memoirs  ol 
Captains  Speke  and  Grant. 

*  These  legends  of  serpent-women  are  not  uncommon  in 
German  mythology.  The  following  adventure  is  related  by 
the  brothers  Grimm  ;  “One  Leonhard,  who  was  a  stammerer, 
but  a  good  fellow,  and  of  irreproachable  morals,  lost  his  way 
one  day  as  he  was  visiting  some  underground  vaults  of  the 
nature  of  catacombs.  All  at  once  he  found  himself  in  a  deli¬ 
cious  meadow,  in  the  midst  of  which  was  playing  a  young  girl, 
half  concealed  by  the  herbage.  She  invited  him  to  come  and 
rest  by  her  side.  Leonhard,  out  of  pure  politeness,  obeyed  her 
eagerly,  and  then  became  aware  of  a  fact  which  the  long  grass 
had  at  first  prevented  his  observing,— that  the  damsel,  the  upper 
part  of  whose  body  was  white  and  beautiful,  terminated  below 
in  a  scaly  and  serpent-like  tail.  He  wished  to  fly,  but  his  legs 


SCYTHIA. 


91 


result  of  this  strange  intimacy — one  called  Agathyrsus, 
the  other  Gelonus,  the  other  Scythes.  Hercules,  on  his 
departure,  left  with  the  mother  a  how,  and  a  belt  with 
a  goblet  attached  to  it.  The  son  who  could  bend  the 
bow  was  to  inherit  the  land,  the  others  to  emigrate. 
Scythesj  the  youngest,  bent  the  bow,  and  remained  to 
be  the  father  of  the  kings  of  Scythia,  which  accounted 
for  the  Scythian  custom  of  wearing  a  goblet  attached 
to  the  girdle. 

In  describing  the  geography  of  Scythia,  of  which 

were  immediately  caught  and  embraced  by  her  tail.  Thus 
forced  to  listen,  he  now  heard  the  poor  creature’s  history.  She 
was  born  a  princess,  and  was  enjoying  court  society,  when  a 
malicious  enchanter  charmed  her  into  her  present  state,  from 
which  she  could  only  be  released  on  one  condition,  and  that  was, 
that  she  could  prevail  on  some  fair  young  man,  who  must  be 
perfectly  innocent,  to  give  her  three  kisses.  The  youth  must 
not  be  older  than  twenty-two.  There  was  time  for  Leonhard  to 
have  fulfilled  the  conditions,  for  he  would  be  twenty-three  on 
that  very  day — in  two  hours  more.  But,  unfortunately,  he 
stammered,  and  the  two  hours  were  almost  gone  before  lie 
had  made  the  necessar}”  preliminary  statement  as  to  his  birth. 
Then  he  gave  her  the  first  kiss.  Upon  that  she  was  seized  with 
violent  convulsions,  and  rolled  so  wildly  on  the  grass  that  he 
fled  in  alarm.  He  was,  however,  recalled  by  her  supplications 
and  promises,  and  gave  her  the  second  kiss.  The  effect  of  this 
was  still  more  electric  than  that  of  the  first.  Her  eyes  burned 
like  fire,  she  sprang  up,  her  face  glowed  and  her  cheeks  seemed 
bursting ;  she  whirled  about  like  a  demoniac,  and  hissed,  shrieked, 
and  yelled  like  a  very  Melusina.  Frightened  out  of  his  wits,  the 
youth  rushed  away  through  the  meadow  and  catacombs  till  the 
liideous  object  was  out  of  sight ;  but  after  a  time,  reflecting 
that  he  might  have  made  his  fortune  and  married  a  princess,  he 
turned  to  go  back  once  more.  It  was  too  late;  for,  to  his  un¬ 
speakable  chagrin,  he  just  then  heard  a  village  clock  strike 
twelve,  which  made  him  twenty-three  years  of  age. — X.  1L 
Saintine,  ‘  La  Mythologie  du  Rliin  ’  (free  translation). 


92 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


Herodotus  probably  knew  no  more  than  be  may  have 
heard  at  the  Greek  factory  at  Olbia  (near  the  site 
of  the  modern  Kinburn),  he  is  carried  away  by  the 
interest  of  his  subject,  and  launches  out  into  a  geo¬ 
graphical  digression,  chiefly  entertaining  as  a  record 
of  ancient  notions,  and  as  showing  how  facts  be¬ 
come  altered  in  passing  from  mouth  to  mouth.  The 
“Scythia”  of  Herodotus  seems  to  embrace  “the  basins 
of  the  Don,  Dnieper,  Dniester,  and  Boug,  and  the 
northern  half  of  that  of  the  Lower  Danube”* — Le .,  a 
great  portion  of  Russia,  Bessarabia,  'YVallachia,  and 
Moldavia.  He  tells  strange  stories  of  the  tribes  who 
dwelt  around  Scythia,  as  far  as  the  uttermost  parts  of 
Europe.  The  Issedonians  and  the  Andropliagi  were 
given  to  cannibalism  ;  the  former,  like  the  Callatian 
Indians,  feasting  on  their  fathers,  and  keeping  their 
skulls  set  in  gold  as  heirlooms.  This  custom  was, 
however,  balanced  with  another,  which  would  place 
them,  as  some  might  think  now,  in  the  van  of  progress 
• — they  gave  women  equal  rights  with  men.  The 
Heuri  were  said  to  change  into  wolves  periodically;  a 
tradition  which  still  survives  in  the  “  wehr-wolf  ”  of  the 
Germans,  and  the  “  loup-garou  ”  of  the  French.  Liv 
ingstone  relates  that  there  were  men  in  the  country 
above  the  Zambesi  who  were  supposed  to  become  lions 
for  a  term,  and  that  the  souls  of  great  captains  were 
thought  to  pass  into  the  king  of  beasts.  But  perhaps 
the  story  rose  out  of  the  fact  that  the  FTeuri  wore  wolf- 
skins  in  winter.  There  were  people  in  the  extreme 
north  who  slept  six  months  in  the  year  (Herodotus’s 
informant  may  have  said  that  there  was  night  for  six 
months),  and  who  had  goat’s  feet — that  is,  they  may 


*  Heeren. 


SCYTHIA. 


93 


have  worn  moccasins.  These  may  have  suggested  the 
Satyrs  of  the  Greeks.  A  common  superstition  aloo 
placed  a  wonderfully  good  and  happy  people  behind 
the  region  of  the  north  wind,  called  Hyperboreans. 
So  the  “  blameless  ”  Ethiopians  were  supposed  to 
inhabit  the  extreme  South.  The  Greeks  believed  in 
goodness  when  a  very  long  way  from  home. 

Our  author  mentions  slightly,  and  with  some  dis¬ 
dain,  the  legend  (known  also  to  other  writers)  of  one  of 
these  Hyperboreans,  Abaris,  who  was  said  to  have  been 
even  a  greater  traveller  than  himself- — who  “  walked 
round  the  world  with  an  arrow,  without  once  eating.” 
But  whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  latter  part  of 
the  story,  it  seems  highly  probable  that  in  Abaris’s 
“  arrow  ”  we  have  a  dim  tradition  of  the  magnetic 
needle.  Its  properties  were  certainly  known  to  the 
Chinese  long  before  Herodotus’s  date,  and  some 
rumour  of  the  marvel  might  have  reached  Europe. 
The  story  tempts  Herodotus  into  speculative  cosmo¬ 
graphy.  He  is  dissatisfied  with  the  map  of  Hecatceus, 
who  divided  the  habitable  world  into  two  equal  por¬ 
tions,  Europe  and  Asia,  making  it  like  a  medal,  with 
the  great  river  of  Ocean  for  a  rim;  not  that  he  himself 
at  all  suspected  the  world  of  being  a  sphere,  like  some 
of  the  later  ancients,  but  that  he  thought  the  distribu¬ 
tion  of  the  continents  manifestly  unsound. 

If  Herodotus  had  been  in  the  habit  of  rejecting 
every  tale  that  he  did  not  believe,  like  some  later 
writers,  we  should  have  lost  the  valuable  passage 
which  seems  to  prove  that  Africa  was  circumnavigated 
twenty-one  centuries  before  the  time  of  Diaz  and  Yasco 
de  Gama.  Pharaoh  Necho,  after  giving  up  the  Suez 
canal  as  hopeless,  sent  a  fleet  of  Phoenician  ships  down 


94 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


the  Red  Sea,  ordering  them  to  return  to  Egypt  by  the 
pillars  of  Hercules — that  is,  by  the  Strait  of  Gibraltar. 
As  these  were  their  orders,  it  is  to  be  presumed  that 
the  route  was  already  known.  They  spent  three  years 
in  accomplishing  their  task,  as  they  had  to  sow  graip 
on  the  way,  and  wait  for  the  harvest.  Herodotus  pro¬ 
nounces  their  voyage  apocryphal,  because  they  reported 
they  had  the  sunrise  on  their  right  hand  as  they  sailed 
round  Libya,  but  which  proves  indeed  that  they  had 
doubled  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  Sataspes,  a  Persian, 
tried  to  sail  round  Africa  in  the  other  direction,  but- 
failed.  He  had  got  beyond  Cape  Soloeis  (Spartel)  to 
a  country  inhabited  by  a  dwarfish  people,  who  dressed 
in  palm-leaves ;  and  there,  as  he  declared,  the  ship 
stopped,  and  would  go  no  further.  He  had  evidently 
fallen  in  with  the  southerly  trade-wind,  and  was  not 
aware  that,  in  order  to  proceed,  he  ought  to  have 
pushed  across  towards  the  South  American  continent. 
He  met  with  a  fate  worse  even  than  that  of  some  later 
discoverers  :  he  was  not  only  disbelieved,  but  put  to 
death  on  his  return.  Darius  appears  to  have  taken  a 
great  interest  in  such  discoveries,  and  it  was  he  who 
sent  Scylax  the  Carian  down  the  Indus  to  explore  the 
Indian  Ocean. * 

Amongst  the  strange  customs  which  Herodotus  re¬ 
cords  of  the  Scythians  was  their  manner  of  keeping 
the  anniversary  of  the  burial  of  then*  kings.  They 
slew  fifty  young  men  and  fifty  choice  horses,  stuffed 

*  This  Scylax,  or  more  probably  a  later  writer  who  traded  on 
his  name,  brought  home  some  remarkable  travellers’  stories. 
He  described  an  Indian  tribe  whose  feet  were  so  large  that  they 
used  them  as  parasols,  and  another  whose  ears  were  so  capacious 
that  they  slept  in  them. — See  Rawlinson,  l.  p.  50,  note. 


SC  V  TUT  A. 


9b 

the  "bodies  of  both,  and  set  them  up  round  the  tomb 
in  a  circle,  the  men  mounted  on  the  horses,  a  ghastly 
body-guard  for  the  royal  ghost.  Their  great  deity  was 
the  god  of  war,  whom  they  worshipped  under  the  shape 
of  a  scimitar  The  Russian  or  Turkish  vapour-bath 
would  appear  to  have  been  another  of  their  institu¬ 
tions  ;  but  Herodotus  seems  to  confuse  it  with  the 
process  of  intoxication  by  hemp  -  seed,  which  was 
known  in  early  times.  They  were  also  distinguished 
by  drunkenness  and  dislike  of  foreigners,  like  some  of 
their  supposed  descendants,  who  are  not  yet  cured  of 
these  weaknesses. 

Against  this  nation  Darius  is  said  by  Herodotus  to 
have  moved  a  vast  army,  bridging  over  the  Thracian 
Bosphorus  and  the  Danube  with  boats,  and  taking  with 
him  the  Ionian  tieet,  to  the  custody  of  whose  com¬ 
manders  he  committed  the  bridge  over  the  river,  while 
he  passed  on  into  the  northern  wildernesses.  The 
Scvthians  retreated  before  him  towards  the  Tanais  or 

V 

Don.  Then  they  led  him  such  a  long  chase  that  at 
last  his  patience  was  worn  out,  and  he  sent  to  their 
king  to  demand  that,  as  a  man  of  honour,  he  should 
either  stand  and  fight,  or  deliver  earth  and  water  in 
token  of  submission.  The  Scythian  replied  that  ho 
would  soon  send  him  some  presents  more  to  the 
purpose.  These  arrived  in  due  course  of  time — a 
bird,  a  mouse,  a  frog,  and  five  arrows.  Darius  at 
first  thought  that  this  signified  a  tender  of  homage, 
but  Gobryas,  one  of  the  Seven,  who  had  an  older 
head,  read  the  hieroglyphic  letter  as  follows  :  “  Un¬ 
less  you  can  fly  like  a  bird,  or  burrow  like  a  mouse, 
or  swim  like  a  frog,  you  will  not  escape  the  Scyth¬ 
ian  arrows.”  Darius  took  the  hint  and  retreated. 


9G 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


But  Scythian  horsemen  had  reached  his  bridge  before 
him,  and  tried  to  prevail  on  the  Ionians  to  destroy  it. 
Miltiades  the  Athenian,  now  tyrant  of  the  Chersonese 
(of  whom  we  shall  hear  again),  called  upon  his  fellow- 
Greeks  to  strike,  once  for  all,  a  blow  for  freedom  ;  to 
cut  the  bridge,  and  leave  their  Persian  masters  to 
perish.  But  he  was  overruled  in  the  interest  of 
Darius  by  Ilistiseus  of  Miletus,  and  the  Persian  army 
returned  without  irretrievable  loss  from  its  military 
promenade  in  pursuit  of  the  impalpable  Scythians. 
Megabazus  remained  behind  to  reduce  the  Thracian 
tribes  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Hellespont. 

This  leads  our  author  to  discuss  the  ethnology  of 
Thrace.  It  appeared  to  him  that  if  its  numerous 
tribes  had  been  only  united,  they  would  have  been  a 
match  for  any  existing  nation.  His  Thrace  must  nearly 
have  comprehended  the  present  limits  of  Eoumelia,  Bul¬ 
garia,  Servia,  Moldavia,  and  Wallachia.  The  Getae  or 
Goths,  who  were  subdued  by  Darius  on  his  way  to 
Scythia,  believed  that  when  they  died  they  went  to  a 
good  spirit  named  Zalmoxis,  to  whom  they  sent- a  mes¬ 
senger  every  five  years  ;  that  is,  they  sacrificed  a  man 
by  tossing  him  in  the  air  and  catching  him  on  points 
of  lances.  Another  tribe,  when  a  child  was  born,  sat 
round  him,  bewailing  the  miseries  he  would  have  to 
undergo ;  while  in  a  case  of  death  they  made  a  jubilee 
of  the  funeral,  believing  the  departed  to  have  attained 
everlasting  happiness.  The  same  belief  was  connected 
with  a  custom  in  another  tribe  corresponding  to  the 
“Suttee”  of  the  Hindoos.  When  a  man  died  there 
was  a  sharp  contention  amongst  his  widows  which  was 
the  worthiest  to  be  slain  over  his  grave,  and  the  sur¬ 
viving  wives  considered  themselves  as  in  disgrace, 


SCYTUIA. 


97 


They  marked  high  birth  by  tattooing,  like  the  South 
Sea  Islanders ;  and  thought  idleness,  war,  and  plunder 
honourable,  but  agriculture  meau.  The  nation  in  gen¬ 
eral  worshipped  only  the  gods  of  battle,  of  wine,  and 
of  the  chase.  But  the  kings  paid  especial  honour  to  a 
god  corresponding  to  Hermes  or  Mercury,  or  the  German 
'Woden.  Less  was  known  of  the  tribes  north  of  the 
Danube.  The  Sigynnse  wore  a  dress  like  that  of  the 
Medes,  and  possessed  a  breed  of  active,  hardy,  shaggy 
ponies,  the  description  of  which  answers  to  those  of  the 
Shetland  Islands.  Or  possibly  some  vague  rumour  of 
the  harnessed  dogs  of  Kamskatka  may  have  reached 
the  ears  of  our  author.  He  does  not  think  that  the 
Thracians  could  have  been  correct  in  saying  that  a 
tract  of  country  beyond  the  Danube  was  so  infested 
with  bees  as  to  be  uninhabitable,  as  bees  cannot  bear 
much  cold.  They  may  have  meant  mosquitoes. 

Megabazus  was  now  commissioned  to  transport 
bodily  to  Persia  the  whole  tribe  of  the  Paeon ians,  who 
lived  to  the  north  of  Macedonia,  of  whose  industry 
Darius  had  conceived  an  exaggerated  notion,  by  seeing 
one  of  their  women  at  Sardis  bearing  a  pitcher  on  her 
head,  leading  a  horse,  and  spinning  flax  all  at  the  same 
time.  He  effected  this  task  with  no  great  difficulty ; 
but  other  tribes  resisted  his  arms  with  success,  and  espe¬ 
cially  those  who  inhabited  the  Lake  Prasias.  These 
must  have  been  a  relic  of  the  most  ancient  population 
of  Europe.  Their  habits  were  precisely  the  same  as 
those  of  the  singular  people  whose  whole  manner  of 
life  has  been  brought  to  light  by  the  discovery  of 
ancient  piles  in  the  lakes  of  Zurich  in  Switzerland, 
and  who  appear  to  have  inhabited  nearly  all  the 
comparatively  shallow  lakes  that  have  hitherto  been 
a.  o.  vol.  iii.  a 


98 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


examined.  This  pile  -  city  of  Prasias  is  thus  do* 
scribed : — 

“  Platforms  supported  on  tall  piles  were  fixed  in  the 
midst  of  the  lake,  approached  from  the  land  by  a 
single  narrow  bridge.  Originally  all  the  citizens  in  com¬ 
mon  drove  the  piles  for  the  platform,  but  afterwards 
every  man  drove  three  piles  for  every  wife  he  married, 
and  they  had  each  several  wives.  Each  man  had  his 
own  hut  on  the  platform,  and  his  trap-door  opening 
through  the  scaffolding  on  the  lake  below.  They  tied 
the  little  children  by  the  leg  to  prevent  their  rolling 
into  the  water.”  (The  proportionate  number  of  chil¬ 
dren’s  bones  found  in  the  Swiss  lakes  would  argue  that 
this  custom  was  but  negligently  observed  in  those 
regions.)  “  They  fed  their  horses  and  other  cattle 
upon  fish,  of  which  there  was  such  an  abundance  that 
they  had  only  to  let  down  a  basket  through  the  trap¬ 
door  into  the  water,  and  draw  it  up  full.” 

What  was  the  ultimate  fate  of  this  amphibious 
colony  we  do  not  learn;  but  very  many  of  the  cor¬ 
responding  settlements  in  central  Europe  bear  traces 
of  having  been  destroyed  by  fire.  For  the  present 
these  lake-people  were  impregnable,  and  Megabazus 
turned  his  attention  to  Macedonia,  sending  first  to  the 
court  of  King  Amyntas  an  embassy  of  seven  noble 
Persians  to  demand  earth  and  water.  Amyntas  enter¬ 
tained  them  at  a  feast ;  but  when  their  attentions  to  the 
ladies  of  the  court  began  to  be  offensive,  his  son  Alex¬ 
ander,  indignant  at  the  insult,  dressed  up  some  Mace¬ 
donian  youths  to  personate  the  ladies,  whom  he  had 
managed  to  withdraw  under  promise  of  their  return, 
and  assassinated  the  Persian  envoys  when  heavy  with 
wine.  An  expedition  was  afterwards  sent  to  inquire 


SCYTHIA. 


99 


after  tlieir  fate,  but  Alexander  conciliated  the  com¬ 
mander  with  hush-money  and  the  hand  of  his  sistei 
in  marriage.  The  royal  family  of  Macedonia  were  ot 
Argive  origin,  according  to  Herodotus  ;  otherwise,  he 
says,  they  would  not  have  been  allowed  to  contend  at 
the  Olympic  games.  This  Greek  descent  was  used 
subsequently  by  Philip  of  Maced  on  as  a  plea  for  his 
intervention  in  the  affairs  of  Greece. 

A  casual  notice  of  the  founding  of  Cyrene  leads 
Herodotus  into  Libya,  whither  we  have  no  space  to 
follow  him.  He  touches  on  the  known  North  African 
tribes,  and  glances  at  the  unknown,  relating  many 
marvellous  stories ;  in  fact,  his  love  for  anthropology 
and  geography  makes  him  seize  any  excuse  for  im¬ 
parting  information.  He  wellnigh  exhausts  the  world 
as  known  to  the  ancients,  and  might  have  wept,  as 
Alexander  did  that  he  had  no  more  worlds  to  con¬ 
quer,  that  he  had  no  more  to  describe.  Of  one  remote 
and  apocryphal  region  he  confesses  he  knew  nothing. 
He  was  not  sure  that  the  islands  called  the  Cassiter- 
ides  (“ Tin-Islands ”)  had  any  real  existence;  but  he 
had  been  told  that  tin  came  “from  the  ends  of  the 
earth.”  Such  is  the  sole  notice  which  the  great  tra¬ 
veller  has  left  of  us  or  our  ancestors ;  for  it  is  probable 
that  the  Oassiterides  were  the  coast  of  Cornwall. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  TYRANTS  OF  GREECE. 

jB 

u  If  gods  will  not  misfortune  send. 

List  to  tlie  counsel  of  a  friend  : 

7 

Call  on  thyself  calamity  ; 

And  that,  from  all  thy  treasures  bright. 

In  which  thy  heai-t  takes  most  delight, 

Commit  forthwith  to  deepest  sea.” 

—Schiller,  “  Ring  of  Polycrates.” 

•  • 

The  original  constitution  of  most  of  the  Greek  States 
was  a  limited  monarchy,  though  the  king  was  emphati¬ 
cally  “  hedged  by  divinity,”  since  the  founder  of  his 
family  was  generally  supposed  to  be  a  god.  In  time, 
as  the  royal  prestige  wore  out,  this  constitution  was 
generally  superseded  by  an  oligarchy,  which  lasted 
until  some  ambitious  individual,  by  courting  the  un¬ 
privileged  classes,  managed  to  raise  himself  to  the 
supremacy. 

In  the  fifth  century  before  Christ  there  were  so 
many  of  these  usurpers  at  the  same  time  in  Greece, 
that  it  has  been  called  the  Age  of  Tyrants.  Mr  Grote 
j) refers  to  call  them  “despots  but  the  name  matters 
little  if  no  sinister  meaning  is  necessarily  attached  to  ' 
the  word  Tyrant.  Their  number  at  one  time  was  a 
fact  in  support  of  those  who  believe  in  social  and 


THE  TYRANTS  OF  GREECE. 


101 


political  epidemics.  One  of  the  most  famous  of  them 
was  Polycrates  of  Samos.  He  was  great  in  arms  and 
arts,  and  the  poet  Anacreon  was  the  companion  of  his 
revels,  just  as  Goethe  enjoyed  his  Rhenish  with  Charles 
Augustus,  the  jolly  Grand-Duke  of  Weimar.  His  pros¬ 
perity  was  so  perfect,  that  his  friend  King  Amasis  of 
Egypt,  as  a  prudent  man,  thought  it  his  duty  to  give 
him  a  solemn  warning,  and  advised  him  to  avert  the 
anger  of  the  gods  by  sacrificing  some  object  which 
he  held  very  precious.  Polycrates  chose  out  of  his 
abundant  treasures  a  favourite  emerald  ring,  which  he 
at  once  threw  into  the  sea.  Eive  or  six  days  after¬ 
wards,  a  poor  fisherman  caught  so  magnificent  a  fish 
that  it  struck  him  that  it  was  only  fit  to  set  before  a 
king.  To  Polycrates,  therefore,  he  presented  it,  with 
many  compliments.  The  tyrant,  with  his  usual  geni¬ 
ality,  made  it  a  condition  that  the  fisherman  would 
come  and  help  him  to  eat  it.  He  bashfully  accepted 
the  honour.  When  the  fish  was  served,  behold  !  the 
emerald  ring  was  there  in  its  inside.  The  servants 
were  exceedingly  glad  that  the  king’s  lost  ring  was 
found — possibly  they  had  been  charging  each  other 
with  stealing  it ;  but  Polycrates  looked  serious,  for 
he  felt  that  the  gods  had  rejected  his  offering.  He 
thought  it  right  to  inform  his  friend  Amasis  of  the 
result.  Amasis,  with  less  generosity  than  foresight, 
at  once  sent  a  herald  to  Samos  to  renounce  the  alli¬ 
ance  of  Polycrates,  as  he  felt  sure  that  the  gods  had 
decreed  his  ruin,  and  did  not  wish  to  be  himself 
involved  in  it.  The  tale  of  the  fisherman  and  the 
ring  has  been  transferred  to  Arabian  fable. 

Fortune  still  continued  to  smile  on  Polycrates,  and 
he  overcame  all  his  enemies  by  force  or  fraud.  Some 


102 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


Samians,  whom  he  had  driven  out,  managed  to  set  on 
foot  against  him  an  expedition  from  Lacedaemon. 
The  visit  of  these  people  to  Sparta  is  characteristically 
told.  They  made  a  long  speech  there  in  the  assembly, 
which  they  would  have  hardly  done  if  they  had  known 
the  Spartan  temper  better.  The  authorities  made  re¬ 
ply  that  they  had  forgotten  the  first  half  of  their  dis¬ 
course,  and  could  not  understand  the  second.  The 
Samians  then  held  up  an  empty  bag,  merely  remark¬ 
ing,  “The  bag  wants  flour.”  The  Spartans  said  that 
the  word  “  bag  ”  was  quite  unnecessary — the  gesture 
was  enough.  However,  they  sent  a  force  to  Samos  to 
support  the  exiles ;  and  Poly  crates  is  said  to  have 
bribed  them  to  return  with  leaden  money  gilt  over. 
The  existence  of  the  story  is  singularly  illustrative  of 
the  avarice  as  well  as  the  gullibility  of  this  people. 

But  the  doom  of  Poly  crates  could  only  be  deferred. 
Towards  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Cambyses,  he  was  un¬ 
fortunate  enough  to  excite  the  cupidity  of  Oroetes,  the 
Persian  satrap  of  Sardis,  who  proceeded  to  set  a  trap 
for  him.  Oroetes  said  that  he  feared  the  covetousness 
of  Cambyses,  and  offered  to  deposit  all  his  treasure  with 
Polycrates.  The  latter  sent  his  secretary  to  inspect  it, 
who  was  shown  some  large  chests  full  of  stones,  just 
covered  with  gold.  Satisfied  with  this  report,  in  spite 
of  all  the  warnings  of  his  daughter,  Polycrates  staited 
for  the  court  of  Oroetes  to  fetch  the  treasure.  The  satrap 
at  once  arrested  him,  put  him  to  a  cruel  death,  and 
then  impaled  his  dead  body.  But  the  murderer  after¬ 
wards  came  to  a  violent  end  himself  in  the  reign  of 
Darius. 

Another  specimen  of  a  tyrant,  and  this,  too,  in  our 
common  acceptation  of  the  word,  was  Periander  of 


T1IE  TYRANTS  OF  GREECE. 


103 


Corinth,  the  son  of  Cypselus.  By  his  origin  he  was 
partly  patrician  and  partly  plebeian.  At  one  time  the 
government  of  Corinth  was  in  the  hands  of  a  single 
family  called  the  Bacchiadse,  who  only  intermarried 
with  one  another.  But  one  of  them  happened  to 
have  a  daughter  called,  from  her  lameness,  Labda  (from 
the  Greek  letter  A  (L),  which  originally  had  one  leg 
shorter  than  the  other),  whom  her  parents  were,  on 
this  account,  obliged  to  marry  out  of  the  family  to  one 
Aetion,  a  man  of  the  people.  In  consequence  of  oracles 
which  boded  ill  to  Corinth  from  a  son  of  Aetion,  the 
rulers  sent  ten  of  their  number  to  despatch  the  in¬ 
fant  as  soon  as  he  was  born.  When  they  came  and 
asked  to  see  the  child,  Labda  showed  it  them,  thinking 
their  visit  was  only  complimentary.  They  had  agreed 
that  whoever  took  the  child  first  in  his  arms  should 
dash  it  on  the  ground.  Providentially,  however,  the 
babe  smiled  in  the  man’s  face  who  had  taken  him,  so 
that  he  had  no  heart  to  kill  it,  but  passed  it  on  to  his 
neighbour,  and  he  to  another,  and  so  it  went  through  all 
the  ten.  When  the  mother  had  carried  the  child 
indoors  again,  she  overheard  the  party  outside  loudly 
reproaching  one  another  with  their  faint-heartedness 
in  not  making  away  with  it.  Fearing  from  this  that 
they  would  return,  she  hid  the  child  away  in  a  chest 
or  corn-bin,  so  that  when  they  re-entered  they  could 
not  find  him.  From  this  escape  be  was  called  Cyp¬ 
selus  or  ‘  Bin.’  When  he  grew  up  he  made  himself 
despot  of  Corinth,  and  ruled  harshly,  visiting  the 
citizens  with  confiscations,  banishment,  and  death. 
He  reigned  thirt  y  years,  and  then  his  son  Periander 
succeeded  him,  who,  at  first,  was  a  mild  ruler,  until 
he  sent  to  Thrasj  btilus,  despot  of  Miletus,  to  ask  him 


104 


T1IE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


the  "best  way  of  governing  his  people.  Thrasybulus 
took  the  Corinthian  herald  forth  into  the  fields,  and 
as  he  passed  through  the  corn,  still  questioning  him 
about  Corinthian  affairs,  he  snapped  off  and  threw  away 
all  the  ears  that  overtopped  the  rest.  He  walked 
through  the  whole  field  doing  this,  till  the  damage 
was  considerable.  After  this  he  dismissed  his  visitor 
without  a  word  of  advice.  When  the  messenger 
returned  to  Periander,  he  said  that  he  had  been  sent 
on  a  fool’s  errand  to  a  madman,  who  gave  him  no 
answer,  but  only  walked  through  a  field  spoiling  his 
wheat  by  plucking  off  all  the  longest  ears.*  Periander 
said  nothing  ;  but  he  understood  the  meaning  of  Thra¬ 
sybulus,  which  was,  that  he  was  to  govern  by  cutting 
off  all  the  foremost  citizens.  After  this  he  became  a 
much  worse  tyrant  than  his  father,  and  finished  the 
work  which  he  had  begun.  On  one  occasion  he 
stripped  all  the  women  of  Corinth  of  their  clothes. 
Having  sent  to  consult  an  oracle  of  the  deadf  about 
some  lost  property,  the  shade  of  his  wife  Melissa 
(whom  he  had  put  to  death)  appeared  to  him,  and 
said  that  she  was  cold,  and  had  literally  nothing  to 
put  on  ;  for  the  robes  buried  with  her  were  of  no  use, 
since  they  had  nol  been  burnt.  So  he  made  proclama¬ 
tion  that  all  the  matrons  should  go  to  the  temple  of 
Juno  in  full  dresS,  and  there  having  surrounded  them 

*  The  English  reader  will  remember  the  words  of  the  gardener 
in  Shakespeare  : — 

“  Go  thou,  and  like  an  executioner, 

Cut  off  the  heads  of  too  fast- growing  sprays, 

That  look  too  lofty  in  our  comm  on  wealth." 

—  ‘Richard  II.,’  Act.  iii.  sc.  4. 

t  Hence  the  word  “necromancy.”  The  parallel  of  Saul,  the 
witch  of  Endor,  and  the  ghost  of  Samuel,  is  at  once  suggested. 


THE  TYRANTS  OF  GREECE. 


105 


with  his  guards,  took  all  their  clothes  from  them,  and 
burnt  them  as  an  offering  to  his  dead  queen. 

The  relations  of  Periander  with  his  younger  son 
Lycophron  form  one  of  the  most  touching  episodes  in 
1  lerodotus.  The  lad  had  learnt  the  fact  of  his  mother’s 
murder,  and  from  that  time  would  neither  speak  to  his 
father  nor  answer  him.  The  father  at  last  banished  him 
from  his  house.  He  even  sent  warning  to  the  friends 
with  whom  his  son  took  refuge,  that  all  who  harboured 
him  did  so  at  their  peril — nay,  that  any  who  even  spoke 
to  him  should  pay  a  fine  to  Apollo.  The  lad  Avandered 
miserably  from  one  to  the  other,  and  at  last  Avas  found 
lying  in  the  public  porticoes.  Then  Periander  himself 
Avent  to  him,  and  upbraided  him  Avith  his  folly  in  de¬ 
priving  himself  by  his  obstinacy  of  a  princely  home. 
Lycophron  only  ansAvered  by  reminding  his  father  that 
he  had  iioav  himself  incurred  the  forfeit  to  the  god.  Per¬ 
iander  saw  that  the  case  Avas  hopeless,  and  sent  him  to 
Corcyra  for  safe  keeping.  But  Avhen  he  found  himself 
growing  old,  and  unequal  to  the  cares  of  government, 
and  saAV  that  his  elder  son  Avas  quite  incompetent, 
he  sent  to  offer  to  resign  in  Lycophron’s  favour.  Ho 
reply  came.  Then  the  father  sent  his  favourite  sister 
to  treat  with  him,  and  try  to  soften  his  heart.  Lyco¬ 
phron’s  ansAver  Avas  that  he  Avould  never  set  foot  again 
in  Samos  Avhile  his  father  lived.  Periander  humbled 
himself  so  far  as  to  offer  to  retire  himself  to  Corcyra, 
and  allow  the  son  to  take  his  place.  To  this  Lycophron 
agreed  ;  on  hearing  Avhich  the  people  of  Corcyra  mur¬ 
dered  him,  in  dread  of  receiving  as  their  master  the 
I  errible  Periander. 

A  pleasanter  story  in  connection  Avith  him  will  bo 
best  told,  as  nearly  as  may  be,  in  the  old  historian’s 


the  history  of  iifrodotus. 


H>G 

own  words,  with  a  little  retrenchment  of  his  dif¬ 
fuseness. 


Arion  and  the  Dolphin. 

In  Periander’s  days  there  lived  a  minstrel  of  Lesbos, 
Arion  by  name,  who  was  second  to  none  as  a  player  on 
the  lute.  This  Arion,  who  spent  most  of  his  time  with 
Periander,  sailed  to  Italy  and  Sicily,  and  having  earned 
by  his  minstrelsy  great  store  of  treasure,  hired  a  Corin¬ 
thian  ship  to  go  back  to  Corinth — for  whom  should  he 
trust  rather  than  the  Corinthians,  whom  he  knew  so  well. 
When  the  crew  were  out  at  sea,  they  took  counsel 
together  to  throw  Arion  overboard,  and  keep  his  treas¬ 
ure.  But  he  divined  their  intent,  and  besought  them 
to  take  his  money,  but  spare  his  life.  But  the  ship- 
men  refused,  and  bade  him  either  straightway  kill  him¬ 
self  on  board,  so  that  he  might  be  buried  on  shore,  or 
leap  into  the  sea  of  his  own  freewill.  Then  Arion, 
being  in  a  sore  strait,  begged,  since  it  must  be  so,  that 
he  might  don  his  vestments,  and  sing  one  strain  stand¬ 
ing  on  the  quarterdeck  ;  and  when  he  had  ended  his 
song  he  promised  to  despatch  himself.  [He  asked  to 
put  on  his  sacred  garb,  knowing  that  thereby  he  should 
gain  the  protection  of  Apollo.]  The  seamen  consented,  as 
well  pleased  once  more  to  hear  the  master  of  all  singers, 
and  made  space  to  hear  him,  withdrawing  into  the 
midship;  and  he  chanted  a  lively  air,  and  then  plunged 
overboard,  all  as  he  was.  So  they  sailed  away  to 
Corinth,  and  thought  no  more  of  Arion.  But,  lo  !  a 
dolphin  took  the  minstrel  up  on  his  back,  and  landed 
him  safely  at  the  promontory  of  Tsenarus  in  Laconia, 
whence  he  made  his  way  to  Corinth,  all  in  his  sacred 
robes,  and  told  there  all  that  had  befallen  him.  But 


TTIE  TYRANTS  OF  GREECE. 


107 


Periander  did  not  believe  him,  and  kept  him  under 
guard.  At  last  the  shipmen  came,  and  when  Periander 
asked  them  what  had  become  of  Arion,  they  said  they 
had  left  him  safe  and  sound  at  Tarentum,  in  Italy. 
Then  Periander  produced  Arion  in  his  vestments,  just 
as  he  was  when  he  leapt  overboard,  and  they  were 
struck  dumb,  and  could  deny  their  guilt  no  more. 
And  Arion  set  up,  as  a  thank-offering  to  the  god,  an 
effigy  of  a  man  riding  on  a  dolphin. 


Such  is  the  legend  given  by  Herodotus.  Another 
version  makes  Apollo  appear  to  Arion  in  a  dream, 
assuring  him  of  succour  before  he  leapt  overboard, 
and  adds  that,  after  landing,  the  bard  neglected  to 
put  back  again  into  the  sea  his  preserver,  who  con¬ 
sequently  perished,  and  was  buried  by  the  king  of  the 
country.  When  the  sailors  came,  they  were  made  to 
swear  to  the  truth  of  their  story  on  the  dolphin’s  tomb, 
where  Arion  had  been  previously  hid.  When  he  sud¬ 
denly  appeared,  they  confessed  their  guilt,  and  were 
punished  by  crucifixion,  for  the  double  crime  of  rob¬ 
bery  with  intent  to  murder,  and  perjury.  Arion  and 
his  bearer  afterwards  became  a  constellation,  by  the  will 
of  Apollo,  according  to  a  later  addition  to  the  legend. 

It  is  not  impossible  that  the  legend  of  Arion  grew  out 
of  the  group  of  the  man  on  the  dolphin,  which  may  have 
been  set  up  to  commemorate  the  expedition  which 
sailed  from  Laconia  to  found  Tarentum,  comprised  of 
Dorian  and  Achaean  Greeks ;  the  dolphin,  sacred  to 
Neptune,  symbolising  the  Achaean  element,  and  the 
minstrel,  loved  of  Apollo,  the  Dorian.  The  legend  of 
f  -olston,  the  munificent  Bristol  merchant,  whose  anniver- 


103 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


sary  is  still  celebrated  at  Bristol,  is  well  known  in  the 
west  of  England.  A  ship  in  which  he  sailed  was  said 
to  have  sprung  a  leak,  which  was  miraculously  plugged 
by  a  self-sacrificing  dolphin,  and  so  the  ship  came  home 
safe.  Some  rationalists  have  volunteered  the  prosaic 
explanation  that  Colston  was  saved  and  brought  home 
in  another  vessel  called  the  Dolphin.  One  of  the 
charitable  societies  formed  in  his  honour  bears  the 
name  of  the  “  Dolphin.”  The  sacred  character  of  this 
fish  (or  rather  "cetacean)  is  doubtless  of  remote  anti¬ 
quity.  He  is  t lie  subject  of  a  little  poem  (exquisite 
in  the  original)  by  Philip  of  Thessalonica. 

The  Dolphin  and  the  Nightingale. 

“  Blaming  Boreas,  o’er  the  sea  I  was  flying  slowly, 

For  the  wind  of  Thrace  to  me  is  a  thing  unholy, 

When  his  back  a  dolphin  showed,  bending  with  devotion, 
And  the  child  of  aether  rode  on  the  child  of  ocean. 

I  am  that  sweet-chanting  bird  whom  the  night  doth  smile 
at  ; 

And  like  one  that  kept  his  word  proved  my  dolphin  pilo/- 
As  he  glided  onward  still  with  his  oarless  rowing, 

With  the  lute  within  my  bill  I  did  cheer  his  going. 
Dolphins  never  ply  for  hire,  but  for  love  and  glory, 

When  the  sons  of  song  require  ;  trust  Arion’s  story.” 

There  is  also  a  beautiful  version  of  the  legend  by 
the  Boman  poet  Ovid. 

Cleisthenes  of  Sicyon  was  another  eminent  tyrant, 
and  a  magnificent  man  in  every  way.  lie  had  ono 
beautiful  daughter  named  Agariste,  through*  whom  des¬ 
potism  was  fated  to  receive  its  death-blow  in  Athens. 
Like  the  Orsinis  and  Col  on  n  as  of  medieval  Rome, 


THE  TYRANTS  OF  GREECE. 


109 


whose  feuds  gave  Eienzi  his  opportunity  to  establish 
democracy,  the  patrician  families  of  the  Isagorids  and 
Alcmoeonids  strove  for  supremacy  at  Athens,  and  their 
strife  gave  birth  to  freedom.  Herodotus  gives  a  quaint 
account  of  the  foundation  of  the  great  wealth  of  the 
latter  family. 

Alcmaeon,  the  son  of  Megacles,  had  assisted  Croesus 
in  his  negotiations  with  the  Delphic  oracle,  and  was 
invited  in  consequence  to  the  court  of  Sardis.  When 
he  had  arrived,  Croesus  gave  him  leave  to  go  into  the 
treasury  and  take  as  much  gold  as  he  could  carry  away 
on  his  person  at  one  time.  So  he  put  on  the  largest 
tunic  he  could  find,  so  as  to  make  a  capacious  fold,  and 
the  roomiest  buskins.  First  he  stowed  his  boots  with 
gold  dust,  then  he  packed  his  clothes  with  it,  then  he 
powdered  his  hair  with  it,  and  lastly  he  took  a  mouth¬ 
ful  of  it,  and  so  came  out  of  the  treasury  “  dragging 
his  legs  with  difficulty,  and  looking  like  anything 
rather  than  a  human  being,  as  his  mouth  was  choked 
up,  and  everything  about  him  wms  in  a  plethoric  state.” 
When  Croesus  saw  him  he  was  highly  amused,  and 
gave  him  what  he  had  taken  and  as  much  again. 
When  Alcmaeon  came  home  to  Athens  he  found  him¬ 
self  rich  enough  to  enter  as  a  competitor  at  the  great 
Olympic  games,  and  win  the  blue  ribbon  of  that 
national  festival — the  four-horse  chariot-race,  which 
made  the  winner  a  hero  in  the  eyes  of  his  countrymen 
for  ever. 

Two  generations  afterwards  this  family  made  a  splen¬ 
did  marriage.  Cleisthenes  of  Sicyon  had  added 
this  to  his  renown,  that  he  too  had  been  a  victor 
at  Olympia.  Under  these  circumstances  he  was  not 
inclined  to  throw  away  a  beauty  and  heiress  like  his 


110 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


daughter  Agariste  on  the  first  comer,  hut,  like  the 
father  in  Goldoni’s  “  Matrimonio  per  concorso he  pro¬ 
claimed  that  she  should  he  wooed  and  won  hy  public 
competition.  He  invited  all  the  most  eligible  youths 
in  Greece  to  come  and  spend  a  year  at  his  court,  pro¬ 
mising  to  give  his  decision  when  it  had  elapsed;  and 
lie  prepared  an  arena  expressly  for  the  purpose  of  test¬ 
ing  their  athletic  proficiency.  Among  the  suitors  was 
the  exquisite  Smyndyrides  of  Syharis,  the  most  luxu¬ 
rious  man  of  the  most  luxurious  Hellenic  city.  It  was 
he  who  was  said  to  have  complained  of  the  crumpled 
rose-leaf  on  his  couch,  and  to  have  fainted  when  he 
once  saw  a  man  hard  at  work  in  the  fields.  He  would 
certainly  have  broken  down  in  the  athletic  ordeal, 
hsot  so  Males,  the  hi  other  of  Titormus,  a  kind  of  hu¬ 
man  gorilla  of  enormous  strength  who  lived  in  the 
wilds  of  Hitolia ;  but  he  would  scarcely  have  been 
polished  enough  as  a  son-indaw  for  Cleisthenes.  And 
the  father  might  be  loath  to  intrust  his  daughter  to  the 
son  of  Pheidon,  the  despot  of  Argos,  a  man  notorious 
for  rapacity  and  violence.  The  two  Athenian  candi¬ 
dates,  Megacles  son  of  Alcmseon,*  and  Hippocleides,  a 
member  of  the  great  rival  family,  were  probably  the 
favourites  from  the  first ;  for  it  is  hard  to  imagine  that 
there  was  no  betting  on  an  occasion  so  tempting  to 
the  sporting  characters  of  antiquity.  Cleisthenes  having 
first  ascertained  that  his  guests  could  give  satisfactory 
references,  made  proof  of  their  manhood,  their  tempers, 
their  accomplishments,  and  their  tastes, — sometimes 
bringing  them  altogether,  sometimes  holding  private 

*  The  son  in  this  family  took  the  grandfather’s  name  :  M le¬ 
gacies,  Alcmreon,  Megacles,  Alcnueon,  and  so  on.  This  whs 
Alcmieon  II. 


THE  TYRANTS  OF  GREECE. 


Ill 


conversations  with  each.  Although  gymnastics  were 
very  important,  he  seemed  to  have  laid  most  stress  on 
their  qualities  as  diners-out.  The  man  who  at  the 
end  of  the  year  seemed,  in  the  opinion  of  all,  to  have 
the  best  chance,  was  Hippocleides,  who  indeed  was 
connected  with  the  royal  Cypselids  of  Corinth,  as  well 
as  an  Athenian  of  the  highest  fashion.  When  the 
great  day  arrived  for  the  suitors  to  know  their  fate, 
Cleisthenes  sacrificed  a  hundred  oxen,  and  gave  a  pub¬ 
lic  feast,  to  which  he  invited  not  only  the  foreign 
suitors,  but  all  his  own  people.  After  the  feast  there 
was  one  more  trial  in  music  and  in  rhetoric, — probably 
to  see  how  the  suitors  could  carry  their  wine.  As  the 
cup  went  round,  Hippocleides,  abashing  the  rest  of  the 
party  by  his  assurance,  called  to  the  flute-player  to 
strike  up  a  dance.  Then  he  danced,  in  a  manner  which 
gave  perfect  satisfaction  to  himself,  though  Cleisthenes 
began  to  look  grave.  Next  he  ordered  a  table  to  be 
brought  in,  mounted  on  it,  and  rehearsed  certain  Laco¬ 
nian  and  Attic  figures.  To  crown  all,  he  stood  on  his 
head  and  kicked  his  legs  in  the  air.  This  last  per¬ 
formance,  which  Hippocleides  might  perhaps  have 
learnt  in  his  youth  from  the  street-boys  of  the  Piraeus, 
was  too  much  for  Cleisthenes,  who  had  long  contained 
himself  with  difficulty.  u  Son  of  Tisander,  thou  hast 
danced  away  thy  marriage,”  he  exclaimed,  in  fierce 
disgust.  The  other  quietly  answered,  “Hippocleides 
does  not  care  !  ”  from  which  “  Hippocleides  don’t  care  ” 
became  a  proverbial  expression.  Then,  as  Herodotus 
tells  us,  Cleisthenes  rose  and  spoke  to  this  effect : — 

“  Gentlemen,  suitors  of  my  daughter, — I  am  well 
pleased  with  you  all — so  well  pleased  that,  if  it  were  pos¬ 
sible,  I  would  make  you  all  my  sons-in-law.  But  as  1 


112 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


have  hut  one  daughter,  that  is  unfortunately  impossible. 
You  have  all  done  me  much  honour  in  desiring  the 
alliance  of  my  house.  In  consideration  of  this,  and  of 
the  inconvenience  to  which  you  have  been  put  in 
wasting  your  valuable  time  at  my  court,  I  beg  to  present 
you  with  a  talent  of  silver  each.  But  to  Megacles, 
the  son  of  Alcmreon,  I  betroth  my  daughter  Agariste 
tc  be  his  wife  according  to  the  usage  of  Athens.” 

The  issue  of  this  marriage  was  Cleisthenes,  the  great 
Athenian  reformer,  who  was  named  after  his  maternal 
grandfather. 

Pisistratus,  the  despot  of  Athens,  has  been  already 
mentioned  as  contemporary  with  Croesus.  He  Avon 
immortality  by  digesting  the  poems  of  Homer  into  a 
consecutive  whole, — settling,  as  it  were,  the  canon  of  the 
Greek  Scriptures.  His  rule  Avas  just  and  mild,  until  his 
enemies  forced  greater  seArerity  upon  him  in  his  latter 
days.  He  Avas  succeeded  by  his  son  Hippias.  An  abor¬ 
tive  attempt  to  assassinate  this  prince  Avas  made  by  two 
men  bound  together  by  the  tie  of  romantic  friendship 
peculiar  to  the  Greeks,  Harmodius  and  Aristogeiton. 
This  pair  have  always  been  celebrated  as  model  patriots 
by  the  admirers  of  tyrannicide ;  but  they  bungled  in 
their  business  by  slaying  the  Avrong  brother,  Hipparchus 
instead  of  Hippias,  and  only  provoked  Hippias  to  ster¬ 
ner  measures  of  repression.  At  last  the  Alcnneonids, 
groAving  weary  of  exile,  made  such  strong  interest  Avith 
the  god  of  Delphi  that  his  oracle  continually  urged  the 
Spartans  to  expel  the  Pisistratids.  The  clan,  after  a 
long  struggle,  Avere  compelled  to  quit  Athens,  and  re¬ 
tired  to  Sigeium,  on  the  Hellespont,  having  selected 
this  asylum  as  most  convenient  for  intriguing  with  the 
Court  of  Persia  for  their  restoration.  They  had  ruled  in 


THE  TYRANTS  OF  GREECE. 


113 


Athens  from  b.c.  560  to  b.c.  510,  which  was  about  the 
date  of  the  expulsion  of  the  kings  from  Rome.  They 
traced  their  origir  to  Codrus  and  Melantlius,  semi- 
mythical  kings  of  Attica,  and  remotely  to  the  Homeric 
Nestor  of  Pylos,  after  whose  son  Pisistratus  the  great 
ruler  of  Athens  was  named. 

A  festival  song  in  honour  of  the  famous  tyrannicides 
was  long  the  “  Marseillaise  ”  of  republican  Athens  : — 

The  Sword  and  the  Myrtle. 

I’ll  wreath  with  myrtle-bough  my  sword, 

Like  those  who  struck  down  Athens’  lord, 

Our  laws  engrafting  equal  right  on — 

Harmodius  and  Aristogeiton. 

Harmodius  dear,  thou  art  not  dead, 

But  in  the  happy  isles,  they  say, 

Where  fleet  Achilles  lives  for  aye, 

And  good  Tydeides  Diomed. 

I’ll  wreath  my  sword  with  myrtle-bough. 

Like  those  who  laid  Hipparchus  low, 

When  on  Athene’s  holiday 

The  tyrant  wight  they  dared  to  slay. 

Because  they  slew  him,  and  because 
They  gave  to  Athens  equal  laivs, 

Eternal  fame  shall  shed  a  light  on 
Harmodius  and  Aristogeiton. 


k.  c.  vol.  iii. 


H 


1 


CHAPTER  Virt 

IONIa. 

u  0  for  a  tongue  to  curse  the  slave, 

Whose  treason,  like  a  deadly  blight. 

Comes  o’er  the  counsels  of  the  brave. 

And  blasts  them  in  their  hour  of  might !  ’’ 

— Moore,  “  Fire-Worshippers.” 

Darius  had  not  forgotten  the  good  service  done  him  by 
Histiseus  of  Miletus,  in  preserving  the  Danube  bridge 
for  him  on  his  hurried  retreat  from  the  Scythian  expe¬ 
dition.  He  had  given  him  a  grant  of  land  in  Thrace, 
in  a  most  desirable  position  for  a  new  settlement. 
But  he  was  afterwards  persuaded  that  he  had  done 
wrong.  A  shrewd  Greek  would  be  tempted  to  form 
there  the  nucleus  of  an  independent  power.  He  there¬ 
fore  sent  for  Histiseus,  and  detained  him  in  an  honour 
able  captivity  in  his  own  court  at  Susa.  And  this 
detention  led  to  the  great  Persian  war. 

There  was  a  revolution  in  the  little  island  of  Naxos. 
“  The  men  of  substance,”  as  they  were  literally  called, 
were  expelled,  and  came  to  Miletus  begging  Arista  g- 
oras,  now  deputy  -  governor  in  the  absence  of  his 
father-in-law  Histiseus,  to  restore  them.  Thinking  to 
get  Naxos  for  himself,  Aristagoras  procured  the  aid  of 


IONIA. 


115 


a  Persian  flotilla.  On  the  way,  a  quarrel  arose  about 
a  Greek  captain  whom  Megabates,  the  Persian  admiral, 
had  punished,  because  he  found  no  watch  set  on  board 
his  ship.  The  punishment  consisted  in  binding  him 
down  so  that  his  head  protruded  from  one  of  the  ports 
or  rowlocks,  and  Aristagoras  had  taken  upon  himself 
to  release  him.  Megabates,  in  dudgeon,  sent  to  warn 
the  Naxians,  who  were  to  have  been  surprised,  and  the 
expedition  failed.  Then  Aristagoras,  finding  himself 
unable  to  pay  the  expenses  of  the  armament,  as  had 
been  stipulated,  thought  of  securing  his  position  by 
the  desperate  expedient  of  stirring  up  a  revolt  at 
Miletus  against  Persia.  He  was  confirmed  in  this 
resolution  by  the  arrival  of  a  singular  courier  from. 
Histiaeus,  who  was  determined  at  any  cost  to  escape 
from  the  forced  hospitalities  of  Susa.  Histiaeus  had 
taken  a  slave,  shaved  his  head,  punctured  certain  letters 
on  the  bare  crown,  then  kept  him  till  the  hair  was 
grown,  and  sent  him  to  Aristagoras  with  merely  the 
verbal  message  that  he  was  to  shave  his  head.  When 
Aristagoras  had  played  the  barber,  he  found  that  the 
living  despatch  bore  the  word  “  revolt.” 

His  first  step  was  to  proclaim  democracy  throughout 
the  Greek  confederacy.  The  different  despots  were 
given  up  to  their  fellow-citizens,  to  be  dealt  with  ac¬ 
cording  to  their  deserts.  It  speaks  strongly  in  favour 
of  the  character  of  their  “tyranny,”  that  nearly  all 
were  dismissed  uninjured.  One  only — Coes  of  Mytilene 
—  was  stoned  to  death.  Aristagoras  then  set  sail  for 
Sparta  to  seek  for  aid.  That  state  at  this  time  en¬ 
joyed  the  singular  constitution  of  a  double  monarchy. 
This  may  have  bad  some  mythological  connection 
with  the  legend  of  the  twin  sons  of  Leda,  Castor  and 


110  THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 

Pollux,  who  became  sea-gods,  from  whom  the  con¬ 
stellation  of  the  Gemini  was  named ;  but  HerodotJ»s 
assigns  to  it  a  different  origin. 

His  tradition  is  that  when  the  sons  of  Hercules 
reconquered  their  heritage  of  the  Peloponnese,  one  of 
their  three  chiefs,  Aristodemus,  had  the  kingdom  of 
Sparta  for  his  share.  His  wife  gave  birth  to  twins 
just  before  his  death.  The  boys  were  much  alike ; 
and  the  mother,  hoping  that  they  might  both  be 
kings,  protested  that  she  did  not  know  them  apart. 
The  Spartans  were  puzzled ;  and  the  Delphic  oracle 
gave  an  answer  which  hardly  mended  the  matter, 
except  so  far  that  it  satisfied  the  mother. 

“  Let  both  be  kings,  but  let  the  elder  have  more  honour.” 

But  which  was  the  elder  1  that  was  the  question.  At 
last  it  was  suggested  that  a  watch  should  be  set  to  see 
which  the  mother  washed  and  fe^.  first.  If  she  acted 
on  system,  the  case  was  clear.  The  espionage  suc¬ 
ceeded  ;  the  elder  was  discovered,  and  named  Eurys- 
thenes,  and  the  other  Procles.  The  two  brothers,  when 
they  grew  up,  were  said  to  have  been  always  at  vari¬ 
ance,  and  their  separate  lines  continued  so  ever  after. 
The  two  kings  had  peculiar  duties,  rights,  and  privi¬ 
leges,  but  lived  in  the  same  plain  way  as  other  citizens. 

When  Aristagoras  arrived  at  Sparta,  he  was  admit¬ 
ted  to  an  audience  with  the  senior  king,  Cleomenes.  He 
showed  him  a  bronze  tablet  engraved  with  a  chart — tho 
earliest  known  map  of  the  world — pointed  out  where 
all  the  different  nations  lay,  and  conjured  him  to  assist 
his  kinsmen  the  Tomans  ;  observing,  that  it  was  foolish 


IONIA. 


117 


for  the  Spartans  to  fritter  away  their  force  in  local 
feuds,  when  they  might  he  lords  of  Asia.  As  for  the 
Persians,  they  were  an  easy  prey — men  who  actually 
“  went  into  battle  with  trousers  on.”  Cleomenes  pro¬ 
mised  to  give  him  an  answer  in  three  days.  At  the 
second  interview  he  asked  “  how  far  it  was  to  Susa1?” 
Aristagoras  was  unguarded  enough  to  say,  “  a  three 
months’  journey  on  which  Cleomenes  ordered  him 
to  quit  Sparta  before  sunset.  Then  he  returned  and 
sat  before  the  king  in  the  sacred  guise  of  a  suppliant, 
with  an  olive-bough  in  his  hand.  A  little  daughter  of 
Cleomenes,  named  Gorgo,  aged  eight  or  nine,  was 
standing  at  her  father’s  side.  The  Milesian  wished 
her  to  be  sent  away,  but  Cleomenes  told  him  to  say 
on,  and  not  to  heed  the  child.  Then  Aristagoras  be¬ 
gan  by  offering  ten  talents,  and  as  the  king  shook  his 
head,  increased  them  by  degrees  to  fifty.  When  this 
sum  was  mentioned,  the  child  cried  out,  “  Go  away, 
father,  or  the  strange  man  will  be  sure  to  bribe  thee.’’  * 
The  “conscience  of  the  king”  was  moved.  He  with¬ 
drew  to  escape  the  temptation,  and  the  mission  of 
Aristagoras  failed  at  Sparta. 

At  Athens  he  had  better  chances  of  success.  Athens 
was  in  the  heyday  of  her  first  freedom.  She  had  rid 
herself  of  her  Tyrants,  the  Pisistratids,  who  were  at 

*  Gorgo  was  well  worthy  to  become,  as  she  afterwards  did, 
the  wife  of  Leonidas.  An  incident  in  her  married  life,  subse¬ 
quently  related  by  Herodotus,  seems  to  militate  against  the 
dictum  of  Aristotle  that  the  Spartan  women  were  inferior  to 
the  men.  All  the  authorities  of  Sparta  were  puzzled  by  the 
arrival  of  a  waxen  tablet  (the  usual  form  of  a  despatch)  with 
nothing  written  on  it.  When  Gorgo  heard  of  it,  she  at  once 
suggeoted  that  the  wax  should  be  scraped  off,  and  the  despatch 
was  found  engraven  on  the  wood. 


118 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


this  moment  intriguing  with  Persia,  not  without  sue* 
cess,  for  their  restoration.  The  feelings  of  the  citizens 
towards  these  powerful  absentees  and  their  Asiatic 
friends  were  much  the  same  as  those  of  the  French  of 
1792  towards  the  Emigration  and  its  abettors.  The 
two  great  ruling  families  were  now  the  rival  houses  of 
Alcmseon  and  Isagoras.  Clcistlienes  the  Alcmseonid, 
grandson  of  the  tyrant  of  Sicyon,  might  not  have 
thought  it  worth  his  while  to  court  the  people,  had  he 
not  been  cleterriiined  to  put  down  the  rival  faction 
which  was  led  by  Isagoras,  brother  of  his  father’s  rival 
Hippocleides,  of  dancing  notoriety.  As  it  was,  he 
brought  about  a  complete  democratic  revolution.  He 
broke  up  the  four  old  tribes,  which  were  bound  by 
family  ties  and  sacied  rites,  and  made  ten  new  geo¬ 
graphical  divisions.  This  was  as  radical  a  change  as  the 
substitution  of  departments  for  provinces  in  France ; 
and  the  introduction  of  the  decimal  system,  in  nearly 
every  department  of  state  at  Athens,  anticipated  by 
more  than  two  thousand  years  the  work  of  the  French 
Revolution.  The  Isagorids  for  a  time  turned  the 
tables  on  the  Alcmseonids,  by  calling  in  the  assistance 
of  the  Spartans,  and  Cleisthenes  had  only  just  defeated 
a  dangerous  confederacy  against  Athens.  The  Spartans 
had  invaded  Attica  from  Megara,  when  the  Boeotians 
and  Chalcidians  broke  in  upon  their  northern  frontier. 
But  the  usual  jealousy  between  the  two  Spartan  kings, 
and  the  defection  of  their  Corinthian  allies,  dissolved 
the  Spartan  army,  and  left  the  Athenians  at  leisure 
to  deal  with  their  other  enemies.  They  defeated 
the  Boeotians  with  great  slaughter,  taking  seven  hun¬ 
dred  prisoners  ;  and  crossing  on  the  same  day  to  Euboea, 
there  obtained  a  second  victory  over  the  Chalcidians,  in 


10X1  A. 


K9 

whose  lands  they  afterwards  planted  a  military  colony. 
The  prisoners  were  ransomed,  hut  their  chains  still 
hung  in  the  citadel  of  Athens  in  the  time  of  Herod¬ 
otus  on  the  walls  blackened  with  Persian  fire,  and  a 
handsome  bronze  quadriga  stood  by  the  gateway,  which 
had  been  offered  to  Minerva  from  the  tithe  of  the 
ransom.  Its  inscription  was  to  this  effect : — 

“  Armies  of  nations  twain,  Boeotia  banded  with  Chalcis, 
Sons  of  Athenian  sires  quelled  in  the  labour  of  war, 
Slaking  their  ardent  pride  in  a  dismal  fetter  of  iron — 
Then  to  the  Maid  for  tithe  gave  we  the  chariot-and- 
four.” 

The  energy  of  Athens  at  this  time  struck  Herodotus 
forcibly.  It  was  like  that  of  the  French  Jacobins  when 
they  had  enemies  on  every  frontier,  and  the  Vendee 
and  the  Federals  of  the  South  on  their  hands  besides. 
Great  political  changes  give  a  nation  a  present  sense  of 
life  and  happiness,  which  is  too  often  ultimately  wrecked 
by  selfishness,  but  which  seems  for  a  time  to  inspire 
superhuman  strength.  The  worsted  Thebans  stirred  up 
the  little  island  of  FEgina,  which  was  always  a  thorn  in 
the  side  of  Athens  till  she  had  become  mistress  of  the 
sea.  There  was  a  very  old-standing  feud  about  some 
sacred  images  or  fetishes  of  olive-wood,  representing 
the  goddess  Ceres  and  her  daughter  Persephone.  Ho 
doubt  thdr  holiness  was  enhanced  by  their  age  and 
ugliness.  Artistic  beauty  seems  to  have  little  to  do 
with  the  sacred  ness  of  images,  and  in  modern  times  in 
Italy  an  old  black  Madonna  has  been  an  object  of  pecu¬ 
liar  veneration.  The  Zeus  of  Phidias  and  the  Aphro¬ 
dite  of  Praxiteles  were  not  moulded  by  the  hands  of 
Faith. 

The  Athenians  had  just  refused  a  demand  of  the 


120 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


Persian  satrap  of  Sardis  for  the  restoration  of  their  tyrant 
Hippias,  when  Aristagoras  arrived.  They  received 
him  with  open  arms,  not  only  on  account  of  this,  but 
also  because  Miletus  was  their  own  colony  ;  and  de¬ 
spatched  twenty  ships — probably  all  they  could  spare 
from  the  ZEginetan  war — to  aid  the  Milesians  in  their 
struggle  against  the  yoke  of  Persia.  These  were  joined 
by  live  galleys  from  Eretria  in  Euboea,  that  city  being 
under  an  obligation  to  the  Milesians.  The  crews  left 
their  ships  on  the  shore  near  Ephesus,  and  inarched  on 
and  surprised  Sardis,  shutting  up  the  Persians  in  the  cita¬ 
del.  But  Sardis  proved  to  them  a  miniature  Moscow'. 
The  town,  mainly  built  of  v7ood  and  reeds,  caught  fire, 
and  the  buccaneers  thought  it  best  to  retreat  as  soon 
as  a  sack  became  out  of  the  question.  But  the  Persian 
forces  caught  them  up  near  Ephesus,  and  inflicted  severe 
punishment  before  they  could  reach  their  ships.  The 
Ionian  Greeks  were  now  left  to  themselves  by  the 
Athenians,  but  the  insurrection  assumed  large  propor¬ 
tions,  involving  the  whole  Greek  seaboard  of  Asia, 
many  inland  tribes,  and  lastly  spreading  to  the  island 
of  Cyprus. 

When  Darius  heard  of  the  great  revolt,  and  espe¬ 
cially  cf  the  burning  of  Sardis,  his  wrath  was  greatly 
kindled  against  the  Athenians.  He  took  a  bow  and 
shot  towards  heaven,  saying,  “  0  Zeus  !  grant  that  I 
may  be  avenged  on  the  Athenians !”  He  also  appointed 
a  slave  tc  say  to  him  thrice  every  day  during  dinner, 
“  O  king  !  remember  the  Athenians.”  *  Then  he  sent 

*  There  is  a  parallel  symbolism  in  the  case  of  Elisha  and  Joash 
(2  Kings  xiii.  17):  “Then  Elisha  said,  Shoot;  and  he  shot. 
And  he  said,  The  arrow  of  the  Lord's  deliverance,  and  the  arrow 
of  deliverance  from  Syria.  ” 


10X1  A. 


121 


for  Histiaeus,  telling  him  that  lie  suspected  he  knew 
something  about  the  business.  But  the  Greek’s  innocent 
look  and  plausible  words  deceived  the  king,  who  was 
induced  to  send  him  to  the  coast — the  very  thing  lie 
had  desired — to  help  to  quell  the  insurrection.  At 
Sardis  Histiaeus  found  an  astuter  head  to  deal  with. 
The  satrap  there  was  Artaphernes  the  king’s  brother. 
He  said,  “I  see  how  it  is,  Histiaeus — thou  hast  stitched 
the  shoe,  and  Aristagoras  has  put  it  on.”  But  the 
adroit  Ionian  managed  for  the  time  to  escape  out  ot 
all  his  difficulties.  He  even  outwitted  Artaphernes  so 
far,  that,  as  Mr  Grote  supposes,  he  got  him  to  executo 
a  number  of  innocent  Persians  at  Sardis,  by  opening  a 
treasonable  correspondence  with  them.  The  Milesians, 
however,  would  not  receive  him  back  as  governor  : 
he  therefore  persuaded  the  Lesbians  to  give  him  eight 
triremes,  with  which  he  took  to  piracy  on  his  own  ac¬ 
count  in  the  parts  about  the  Hellespont.  While  ma¬ 
rauding  on  the  coast  near  Lesbos,  he  was  defeated  by 
a  Persian  force  which  happened  to  be  there,  and  his 
captors,  fearing  lest  the  good-natured  Darius  might  par¬ 
don  him,  put  him  to  death  at  Sardis.  Their  fears  were 
well  founded;  for  when  they  sent  his  head  to  the  king, 
Darius  expressed  much  regret,  and  ordered  it  to  be 
buried  with  all  honour.  This  is  quite  consistent  with 
the  character  of  the  Persian  king  as  drawn  by  the 
prophet  Daniel.  It  seems  as  if  no  one  who  had  once 
done  him  a  service  could  ever  afterwards  forfeit  his 
good  graces. 

After  reducing  Cyprus,  the  Persians  fell  with  their 
combined  force  on  the  Ionians  and  their  allies.  A  vic¬ 
tory  won  by  the  Greek  fleet  over  the  Phoenician  sailors 
of  Darius  had  no  result  of  importance.  The  Carians 


\  'll 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


fought  most  valiantly,  and  cut  off  a  whole  Persian 
division  by  an  ambuscade.  Though  they  lost  in  one 
battle  ten  thousand  men,  yet  their  spirit  was  unbroken. 
Miletus,  too,  still  held  out  gallantly.  If  any  man  un¬ 
der  these  circumstances  ought  to  have  shown  an  ex¬ 
ample  of  self-devotion,  that  man  was  Aristagoras. 
But  nerve  is  inconsistent  with  levity  of  character.  It 
often  happens  that  the  coward  runs  into  the  jaws  of 
his  fate,  and  so  it  happened  to  him.  He  abandoned  the 
Toman  cause,  and  with  some  of  his  partisans  sailed  away 
for  his  father-in-law’s  new  settlement  in  Thrace,  where 
he  was  killed  while  besieging  some  petty  town.  He  had 
been  just  in  time  to  make  his  fruitless  escape,  for  the 
Persians  now  proceeded  to  invest  Miletus  by  land  and 
sea.  The  allied  Greeks  decided  on  leaving  it  to  defend 
itself  by  land,  and  concentrating  their  fleet  at  a  small 
island  off  the  coast.  The  allies  counted  in  all  three 
hundred  and  fifty  triremes,  which  were  confronted  by 
six  hundred  in  the  service  of  Persia.  The  Persian  com¬ 
manders  first  tried  to  dissolve  the  hostile  confedera¬ 
tion  by  sending  the  deposed  despots  each  to  their  own 
countrymen  with  promises  of  pa.  don  on  submission,  and 
threats  of  extermination  in  case  of  prolonged  resistance. 
The  plan  so  far  failed  that  it  did  not  supersede  the  ne¬ 
cessity  of  an  action,  for  each  separate  state  imagined  it¬ 
self  the  only  one  to  which  overtures  were  made.  The 
Ionian  captains,  in  their  council  of  war,  now  agreed  to 
put  themselves  all  under  the  command  of  Dionysius 
of  Phocaea.  He  set  to  work  to  put  the  ships  in  con 
stunt  training,  especially  practising  a  manoeuvre  some¬ 
thing  like  that  of  Nelson,  —  attacking  the  enemy  s 
line  in  columns,  and  cutting  through  it.  The  inven¬ 
tion  of  steam-rams  seems  likelv  to  make  the  sea-fights 


IONIA. 


123 


of  the  future  more  like  those  of  the  remote  past  than 
ever.  The  incidents  of  the  Merrimac’s  battle  and  of 
Lissa  recall  the  collisions  of  ancient  navies,  only  that 
the  oars  of  the  galleys  are  superseded  by  steam-engines. 
Their  sails  were  not  used  in  action,  as  they  would  have 
only  embarrassed  the  rowers.  To  sweep  away  a  whole 
broadside  of  oars  by  cleverly  shaving  the  enemy,  and 
then  turn  sharply  and  ram  him  home  on  the  quarter, 
was  doubtless  a  favourite  evolution  of  the  best  sailors. 
Dionysius  was  too  much  of  a  martinet  for  the  self-in¬ 
dulgent  Ionians.  He  kept  them  at  sea  all  night — an 
unheard-of  innovation — and  at  drill  all  day,  and  the 
days  were  terribly  hot.  They  had  not  bargained  for 
this  when  they  chose  him  admiral.  They  began  to 
murmur.  “What  god  have  we  offended  that  we  should 
be  thus  victimised  ?  What  fools  we  were  to  give  our¬ 
selves  up  body  and  soul  to  this  Pliocsean  bully,  who 
commands  but  three  ships  of  his  own  !  We  shall  fall 
sick  with  the  work  and  heat.  The  Persians  can  but 
make  us  slaves,  and  no  da  very  can  well  be  worse  than 
this.  Let  us  mutiny.”  So  they  landed  and  encamped 
on  the  island,  lolled  in  the  shade  all  day,  and  refused 
to  go  on  board  any  more.  Then  the  Persian  poison 
began  to  work.  ./Laces,  the  son  of  Syloson,  lately 
tyrant  of  Samos,  succeeded  in  persuading  his  country¬ 
men  to  promise  to  desert,  and  they  alone  had  sixty 
ships.  Little  could  be  hoped  now  from  a  general 
battle,  but  the  battle  took  place.  The  Samians  went 
off,  all  but  eleven  ships,  whose  stanch  captains,  like 
Nelson  at  Copenhagen  with  his  blind  eye  to  the  tele¬ 
scope,  would  not  see  the  signal  of  retreat.  Most  of  the 
other  allied  squadrons,  when  they  saw  what  the  Samians 
were  doing,  imitated  their  bad  example.  The  Chian 


124  . 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


contingent,  with  the  Samian  eleven  and  a  few  others, 
maintained  a  desperate  struggle.  The  hundred  Chian 
ships,  each  with  forty  picked  marines  on  board,  charged 
repeatedly  through  the  enemy’s  line.  When  they  had 
taken  many  of  his  galleys,  and  lost  half  their  own,  such 
as  were  able  made  their  way  to  their  own  island.  Their 
damaged  ships  made  for  Mycale,  where  the  crews  ran 
them  ashore  and  marched  to  Ephesus.  But  ill  fortune 
followed  them.  It  was  night,  and  the  Ephesians  were 
celebrating  a  feast,  whose  chief  ceremony  was  a  torch¬ 
light  procession  of  women.  Thinking  them  a  party 
of  freebooters  come  to  carry  off  their  wives  and 
daughters,  the  citizens  sallied  out  and  cut  them  all  to 
pieces.  Dionysius  the  Phocsean  had  taken  three  ships, 
thus  exactly  doubling  his  own  number.  When  he  saw 
that  the  fight  was  lost,  he  made  straight  for  the  coast 
of  Phoenicia,  left  undefended  by  the  absence  of  their 
war -galleys,  sank  a  number  of  merchantmen  in  the 
harbours,  and  gained  by  this  booty  the  means  of  set¬ 
ting  up  handsomely  as  a  corsair  in  Sicily,  where  ho 
plundered  Carthaginians  and  Tyrrhenians,  but — with 
“  a  refinement  of  delicacy  very  unusual,”  as  Mr  Raw- 
linson  observes — let  all  Greek  vessels  go  free. 

The  fall  of  Miletus  soon  followed  the  sea-fight.  Most 
of  the  men  were  killed,  and  the  women  and  children 
enslaved.  The  Athenians  were  deeply  affected  by  the 
news,  and  when  their  poet  Phrynichus  brought  on  the 
stage  his  tragedy  of  the  “  Capture  of  Miletus,”  the 
audience  burst  into  tears,  and  he  was  fined  a  thousand 
drachmas  (francs),  and  forbidden  ever  to  exhibit  it 
again.  The  revolt,  which  had  now  been  desperately 
maintained  for  six  years,  was  terribly  expiated.  The 
towns  on  the  coast  were  as  far  as  possible  depopulated 


10  XI  A. 


125 


(the  people  being  sent  to  tlie  interior) ;  and  the  islands 
were  traversed  by  lines  of  soldiers,  who  “  netted  ”  the 
inhabitants  from  one  side  to  the  other.  Cities 
and  temples  were  burnt  to  the  ground.  The  Chians 
had  been  warned  of  coming  evil  by  terrible  portents. 
Of  a  hundred  youths  sent  to  Delphi,  all  but  two  had 
died  of  a  pestilence  ;  and  just  before  the  great  sea-fight 
off  Miletus,  the  roof  of  a  public  school  had  fallen  on 
the  heads  of  the  children  of  the  principal  citizens,  and 
only  one  had  escaped  out  of  a  hundred  and  twenty. 
In  1821  Europe  was  roused  to  sympathy  for  Greece 
by  the  horrors  which  this  very  island  (Scio)  suffered 
from  the  troops  of  the  Capudan  Pasha. 

After  a  time  the  policy  of  the  Persians  changed  to¬ 
wards  Ionia,  probably  because  Darius  disapproved  of  the 
excessive  severity  which  had  been  exercised  ;  and  Mar- 
donius,  his  son-in-law,  a  young  noble  of  great  promise, 
was  sent  to  depose  once  more  the  “  tyrants,”  and  estab¬ 
lish  democracies.  These  rulers  had  proved  that  they 
were  not  to  be  trusted.  Having  settled  this  business 
to  the  king’s  satisfaction,  he  was  appointed  to  the 
command  of  a  fleet  and  army  whose  destination  was 
Athens  and  Eretria — for  Darius  had  never  forgotten 
their  offence  in  the  burning  of  Sardis.  But  the  ulterior 
object  of  the  expedition  was  the  subjugation  of  all 
Greece. 

As  the  Persian  fleet  was  doubling  Mount  Athos, 
a  north  wind  sprang  up  which  terribly  shattered  it. 
Little  short  of  three  hundred  wrecks  and  twenty 
thousand  corpses  were  cast  away  on  the  rocky  pro¬ 
montory.  Many  fell  victims,  says  Herodotus,  to  sea- 
monsters — one  of  the  additional  perils  of  the  deep  in 
the  imagination  of  ancient  mariners ;  those  who  could 


12G 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


not  swim  wore  drowned — and  those  who  could,  died 
of  cold.  Mardonius  himself  received  a  wound  in 
an  action  on  the  mainland  of  Thrace,  and  the 
expedition  returned  home  with  its  commander  in¬ 
valided.  Darius  immediately  made  fresh  prepara¬ 
tions,  and  sent  heralds  to  all  the  Greek  states  to  de¬ 
mand  earth  and  water,  in  order  that  lie  might  know 
what  support  to  expect.  It  is  to  he  hoped  that 
the  Athenians  and  Spartans  did  not  disgrace  them¬ 
selves  by  throwing  one  of  the  heralds  into  a  well  and 
the  other  into  a  pit,  and  telling  them  to  fetch  earth 
and  water  thence ;  but  such  is  the  story.  Darius 
himself  would  under  no  provocation  have  so  forgotten 
his  knighthood.  Some  years  afterwards,  the  Spartans 
were  said  to  have  sent  two  of  their  citizens,  who 
voluntarily  offered  themselves,  to  Susa,  as  an  atone¬ 
ment  for  this  outrage,  for  which  they  believed  that 
the  wrath  of  the  hero  Talthybius,  the  patron  of 
heralds,  lay  heavy  on  them;  but  Xerxes,  who  was 
then  king,  would  not  accept  the  sacrifice,  and  dismissed 
them  unhurt. 

The  ^Eginetans  gave  the  earth  and  water  to  Darius, 
probably  to  spite  the  Athenians,  who  at  once  denounced 
them  to  the  Spartans  (who  were  as  yet  considered 
the  leaders  of  Greece)  as  traitors  to  the  national  cause. 
The  Spartan  king  Cleomenes  went  to  iEgina  to  arrest 
the  most  guilty  parties;  but  his  mission  there  was 
foiled  b}”  his  brother-king  Demaratus,  who  was  accusing 
him  at  home.  In  retaliation,  Cleomenes  attempted  to 
prove  that  Demaratus  was  illegitimate.  His  mother 
was  the  loveliest  woman  in  Sparta.  She  had  been 
ugly  in  her  childhood,  but  was  changed  into  a  beauty 
by  her  nurse  taking  her  daily  to  the  temple  of  Helen. 


TO  XT  A. 


127 


There  a  mysterious  lady — “tall  as  the  gods,  and  most 
divinely  fair” — one  day  laid  her  hand  on  the  child, 
whose  looks  from  that  time  forth  began  to  amend.  In 
due  time  she  had  been  married  to  a  noble  Spartan  ;  but 
Ariston  the  king  fell  in  love  with  her,  and  got  her  from 
her  husband,  who  was  his  greatest  friend,  by  a  ruse. 
Tie  proposed  to  exchange  their  most  precious  posses¬ 
sions,  and  they  ratified  the  compact  by  an  oath. 
Ariston  straightway  demanded  his  friend’s  wife.  Thus 
taken  off  his  guard,  and  bound  by  his  oath,  the  hus¬ 
band  unwillingly  resigned  her.  But  from  circumstances 
connected  with  the  birth  of  the  child  Demaratus,  he 
was  supposed  by  some  to  be  not  the  son  of  Ariston,  but 
of  her  former  husband.  Cleomenes  found  a  powerful 
ally  in  Leotychides,  the  next  heir,  who  was  a  deadly 
enemy  of  Demaratus,  and  the  suit  was  carried  on  in 
his  name.  The  inevitable  oracle  of  Delphi  was  the  last 
court  of  appeal ;  and  the  priestess,  being  bribed  by 
Cleomenes,  pronounced  against  Demaratus,  who  was 
then  deposed,  and  ultimately  driven  from  Sparta  by 
the  taunts  of  Leotychides.  He  made  his  way  to  that 
paradise  of  refugees,  the  hospitable  court  of  Darius, 
who  gave  him  lands  and  cities.  He  had  stood  very 
high  in  the  estimation  of  his  countrymen,  as  having 
been  the  only  Spartan  who  had  won  the  four-horse 
chariot-race  at  Olympia. 

When  Cleomenes  had  thus  worked  his  will  on  Dem¬ 
aratus,  he  took  Leotychides,  his  new  associate  on  the 
throne,  with  him  to  Angina,  where  he  arrested  two  of 
the  principal  citizens,  as  guilty  of  treason  against  the 
liberty  of  Greece,  and  deposited  them  as  hostages  with 
their  bitter  enemies  the  Athenians.  But  bis  own  end 
was  near.  Humour  accused  him  of  underhand  practices 


128 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


against  Demaratus,  and  lie  fled  into  Arcadia,  where  he 
"began  to  hatch  a  conspiracy  against  Sparta.  The  Spar¬ 
tans  in  alarm  called  him  home  to  his  former  honours. 
He  had  always  been  eccentric;  lie  now  became  a  maniac. 
He  would  dash  his  staff  in  the  face  of  every  citizen  he 
met.  At  last  his  friends  put  him  in  the  stocks — a 
wholesome  instrument  of  restraint,  as  common  there 
as  in  our  own  country  within  the  last  century.  Find¬ 
ing  himself  alone  one  day  with  his  keeper,  he  asked 
for  a  knife.  The  Helot  did  not  dare  to  refuse  the 
king,  though  a  prisoner.  Then  he  committed  suicide 
in  a  manner  which,  though  effected  more  clumsily, 
resembled  the  “Happy  Despatch”  of  the  Japanese. 

The  madness  of  Cleoinenes,  like  that  of  Cambyses, 
was  generally  supposed  to  have  been  a  judgment  on 
his  impiety.  Herodotus  thought  his  treatment  of 
Demaratus  enough  to  account  for  it;  but  other  charges 
equally  grave  were  brought  against  him.  He  had 
bribed  the  Pythian  priestess.  He  had  roasted  alive 
some  fifty  Argives  who  had  taken  refuge  in  a  sacred 
grove,  during  his  invasion  of  Argolis,  by  burning  the 
grove  itself.  He  had  scourged  Argive  priests  for  not 
allowing  him,  a  foreigner,  to  sacrifice  in  the  temple  of 
.7  uno.  He  had  been  in  the  habit  of  entering  forbidden 
temples,  and  generally  of  making  a  parade  of  reckless 
irreligion.  dhe  Spartans  themselves,  however,  gave  a 
more  naturalistic  account  of  the  cause  of  his  madness. 
Certain  Scythian  ambassadors,  who  were  staying  at 
Sparta  to  negotiate  a  league  against  Darius,  had  in¬ 
duced  the  king  to  adopt  the  habit  of  taking  his  wine 
without  water  like  themselves.  “  To  drink  like  a 
Scythian”  was  a  proverb.  The  case  of  Cambyses,  as 
we  have  seen,  admitted  of  the  like  explanation. 


10  XI  A. 


129 


When  Cleomenes  was  dead,  the  AEginetans  sent  to 
Sparta  to  complain  of  Leotychides  about  their  hostages, 
who  were  still  in  custody  with  the  Athenians.  Leo¬ 
tychides,  who  was  not  popular,  narrowly  escaped  being 
given  up  as  a  hostage  in  their  stead ;  but,  in  the  end, 
he  was  duly  sent  to  Athens  to  demand  their  release. 
The  Athenians  refused  to  give  them  up,  saying  that 
as  two  kings  had  placed  them  there,  they  could  not 
give  them  up  to  one.  They  certainly  would  have  had 
the  English  law  of  trusteeship  on  tlieir  side.  Leo¬ 
tychides,  however,  read  them  a  striking  lesson  on  the 
sacredness  of  trusts.  He  told  them  how  one  Glaucus, 
a  Spartan,  had  once  consulted  the  oracle  at  Delphi  as 
to  restoring  a  deposit  of  money  to  its  rightful  owner. 
He  had  the  audacity  to  ask  whether  he  might  venture 
to  purge  himself  by  an  oath,  according  to  the  Greek 
law,  and  so  keep  the  money.  The  Pythoness  gave 
answer  in  these  warning  words  : — 

“  0  Glaucus,  gold  is  good  to  win, 

And  a  false  oath  is  easy  sin  ; 

Swear — an  thou  wilt :  death  follows  both 
The  righteous  and  unrighteous  oath  : 

But  Perjury  breeds  an  awful  Birth, 

That  hath  no  name  in  heaven  or  earth  ; 

Strong  without  hands,  swift  without  feet, 

It  tracks  the  pathway  of  deceit — 

Sweeps  its  whole  household  from  the  land; 

Only  the  just  man’s  house  shall  stand.” 

When  Glaucus  heard  these  words,  he  at  once  restored 
the  money,  and  sent  to  beg  of  the  god  that  the  thought 
$f  his  heart  might  be  forgiven  him.  The  oracle  re¬ 
plied  that  to  tempt  heaven  with  such  a  question  was 
as  bad  as  to  commit  the  sin.  “  And  now/’  said  the 
a.  c.  vol.  iii. 


l 


130 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS . 


Spartan  king,  “  mark  my  words,  men  of  Athens ;  at 
this  day  there  is  none  of  Glaucus’  race  left  in  Sparta  * 
they  have  perished,  root  and  branch.” 

The  Athenians,  however,  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  the 
solemn  monition.  In  return  for  their  stubbornness, 
the  iEginetans  laid  wait  for  and  captured  the  Sacred 
Galley  which  carried  the  Athenian  embassy  to  Delos 
periodically,  and  threw  the  envoys  (men  of  the  high¬ 
est  rank)  into  prison.  A  fierce  war  of  reprisals  was 
entered  upon,  of  which  perhaps  the  most  remarkable 
characteristic  is  the  poverty  of  the  Athenians  of  the 
period  in  ships.  They  were  obliged  to  beg  twenty 
galleys  of  their  friends  the  Corinthians,  who,  as  it  was 
against  the  law  to  give  them,  generously  sold  the  whole 
for  a  hundred  drachmae — about  five  francs  apiece. 

Leotychides  might  have  served  to  point  the  moral 
of  his  own  remarkable  anecdote.  He  reaped  little 
happiness  from  the  successful  plot  by  which  he  had 
supplanted  Demaratus.  After  seeing  his  only  son  die 
before  him,  he  ended  his  own  days  in  exile,  having  been 
banished  from  Sparta  for  the  disgraceful  crime  of  taking 
bribes  from  the  enemy  during  a  war  with  the  Thessa¬ 
lians.  The  evident  satisfaction  with  which  Herodotus, 
here  as  elsewhere,  traces  the  course  of  retributive  jus¬ 
tice,  is  highly  characteristic  of  the  historian. 


CHAPTER  IX. 


MARATHON. 

“  The  flying  Mede,  his  shaftless  broken  bow ! 

The  fiery  Greek,  his  red  pursuing  spear  ! 

Mountains  above.  Earth’s,  Ocean’s  plain  below  ! 

Such  was  the  scene.” 

— Byron,  “Childe  Harold.” 

As  the  first  expedition  against  Greece  under  Mardonius 
had  ended  in  disaster,  Darius  thought  it  best  to  let  the 
young  commander  gain  experience  before  he  was  in¬ 
trusted  with  the  conduct  of  another  ;  possibly,  also,  his 
wound  was  long  in  healing.  The  second  armada  was 
put  under  the  command  of  Datis,  a  Mede  of  mature 
years,  and  Artaphemes,  nephew  of  the  king.  They 
had  express  orders  to  bring  the  Athenians  and  Eretrians 
into  the  royal  presence  in  chains.  The  whole  flotilla 
-six  hundred  war-ships,  besides  transports — struck 
straight  across  sea,  through  the  Archipelago,  not  caring 
again  to  tempt  the  dangers  of  Athos.  After  sack¬ 
ing  Naxos,  they  came  to  the  sacred  island  of  Delos, 
the  birthplace  of  the  twin  deities  Apollo  and  Diana. 
Fortunately  for  the  inhabitants,  the  senior  commander 
was  a  Median  ritualist,  not  an  iconoclast  like  Cam- 
byses,  and  the  sacred  island  was  more  than  spared. 


132 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


Herodotus  mentions  an  earthquake  as  occurring  soon 
after  this  visit,  and  Thucydides  another  ;  and  the  story 
of  the  island  having  once  floated  about  at  large, 
before  it  became  fixed,  is  doubtless  connected  'with 
its  volcanic  origin.  The  Persian  armament  swept 
like  a  blight  through  the  other  islands,  and  soon 
appeared  off  the  coast  of  Euboea.  Meeting  with  no 
resistance  on  landing,  they  disembarked  their  cavalry, 
and  laid  siege  to  Eretria,  which  was  betrayed  to  them 
after  six  days  of  severe  fighting.  The  town  was 
burnt  and  sacked,  and  the  inhabitants  carried  away 
captive.  They  expected  from  the  threats  of  Darius 
the  worst  of  fates ;  but  when  they  reached  Susa,  that 
forgiving  monarch  settled  them  peaceably  at  a  place 
called  Ardericca,  where  there  was  a  famous  well  which 
produced  salt,  bitumen,  and  petroleum.  Herodotus 
saw  them  there,  and  mentions  particularly  that  they 
had  not  forgotten  their  Greek. 

The  Athenians,  after  the  fall  of  Eretria,  must  have- 
felt  much  as  the  Jews  did  when  Sennacherib  appeared 
before  their  walls,  and  Pabshakeh  boasted  that  all  the 
kings  and  gods  on  his  march  had  fallen  before  him. 
But  when  they  heard  that  the  Persians  had  actually 
disembarked  at  Marathon,  they  must  have  felt  as 
England  would  have  felt  had  the  news  come  that 
Buonaparte  had  landed  in  Pevensey  Bay,  close  to  the 
ominous  field  of  Hastings.  For  Marathon  had  not  as 
yet  become  a  synonym  for  Victory ;  on  the  contrary, 
Pisistratus  had  beaten  the  Athenian  commons  on 
that  plain,  and  his  son  Hippias  was  now  with  the 
Persian  host  in  a  temper  which,  they  might  be  sure, 
nad  not  improved  with  old  age,  exile,  and  disappoint¬ 
ment. 


M A  RA  THON. 


133 


It  was  Hippias  who,  from  old  association,  and 
thinking  the  plain  well  suited  for  cavalry  manoeuvres, 
had  guided  the  Persians  to  the  strand  of  Marathon 
(now  Vrana).  The  plain  itself  is  shaped  somewhat 
like  a  thin  crescent,  the  sea  washing  its  concavity,  and 
mountains  rising  behind  its  convex  rim,  which  opens 
out  at  the  back  into  two  valleys.  Between  both  a 
spur  runs  out,  commanding  the  two  gaps.  The  slope 
of  this  spur  was  the  key  of  the  Athenian  position.  The 
extent  of  level  ground  is  about  six  miles  long,  as  mea¬ 
sured  by  the  curve  of  the  bay,  and  about  a  mile  and  a 
half  broad.  But  although  along  the  whole  of  the  six 
miles  there  is  a  fine  sandy  beach  for  landing,  behind  it, 
a  considerable  part — more  than  a  third — of  the  crescent- 
plain  is  occupied  by  two  swamps,  one  of  which  is  of 
considerable  extent.  Here  the  Persian  army  awaited 
the  mustering  of  the  Athenians.  Why  they  did  not 
push  on  at  once  into  the  country  is  a  mystery. 

It  so  chanced  that,  just  before  the  Persians  came, 
a  heaven-sent  commander  dropped,  as  it  were,  from 
the  clouds  into  the  fortunate  city  of  Athens.  Tho 
spirits  of  men  rose  when  it  was  rumoured  that  Mil- 
tiades,  the  son  of  Cimon,  had  come  home.  Herod¬ 
otus  gives  us  his  family  history,  which  was  curious 
enough. 

The  Chersonese  is  a  tongue  of  land  jutting  into  the 
sea  from  the  Thracian  mainland.  Its  people  being 
annoyed  by  the  incursions  of  some  savages  to  the  north, 
as  the  Britons  were  by  the  Piets  and  Scots,  sent  a 
deputation  to  the  oracle  at  Delphi  to  ask  for  advice. 
The  god  told  them  to  choose  as  king  the  first  man 
who  should  welcome  them  to  his  house.  For  some 
time  they  traversed  almost  hopelessly  various  parts 


134 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


of  Gieeoe;  but  Greek  respectability  was  not  likely  to 
invite  into  its  sanctuary  a  party  of  strangers  “dressed 
in  outlandish  garments,  and  carrying  long  spears  in 
their  hands.”  At  last  in  Attica  they  passed  by  the 
countryhouse  of  one  Miltiades,  son  of  Cypselus  (a  de¬ 
scendant  of  the  hero  of  the  “  meal-bin  ”)  A  The  demo¬ 
cratic  Tyranny  had  deprived  him  of  occupation,  for  he 
was  a  nobleman  of  the  old  school,  who  came  of  “  a 
four-horse  family,”  says  our  historian — had  won,  indeed, 
tiie  great  Olympic  race  himself — who  traced  his  pedi¬ 
gree  back  to  Ajax,  and  was  connected  with  the  proud 
Isagorids.  So  he  sat  idle  in  his  porch,  heartily  sick  of 
Pisistratus  and  democratic  respectability.  Seeing  the 
•foreign  wayfarers  pass,  out  of  mere  curiosity,  as  it  would 
seem,  he  invited  them  into  his  house  and  entertained 
them.  The  interview  was  satisfactory  ;  Miltiades  con¬ 
sented  to  take  out  a  few  colonists  with  them  to  their 
wilds,  and  be  their  king.  The  first  thing  he  did  was  to 
build  them  a  kind  of  Hadrian’s  wall  to  keep  back  their 
Piets  and  Scots.  His  nephew,  Stesagoras,  the  son  of 
Cimon,  succeeded  him,  and  was  succeeded,  on  his 
violent  death,  by  his  brother,  this  second  Miltiades, 
who  came  out  from  Athens,  and  made  himself  by  a 
coup  d'etat  despot  of  the  whole  Chersonese — a  great  sin 
in  the  eyes  of  his  democratic  countrymen,  who  brought 
him  to  trial  for  it  when  he  came  to  Athens,  but  con¬ 
doned  it  on  account  of  his  services  to  the  state.  When 
the  Persians,  in  their  march  of  vengeance  after  the 
Ionian  revolt,  came  to  the  Hellespont,  he  ran  the  gaunt¬ 
let  of  their  fleet  successfully  with  five  galleys;  but  lie 
left  in  their  hands  one  ship,  on  board  of  which  was 
his  son  As  Miltia  les  had  advised  the  king’s  bridge 

*  See  p.  103. 


M  A  RA  Til  OX. 


135 


over  the  Danube  to  be  destroyed,  his  captors  thought, 
when  they  sent  the  youth  to  Darius,  that  he  would 
punish  the  father  in  his  person ;  but,  with  his  usual 
magnanimity,  the  king  gave  him  a  house  and  estate, 
and  a  Persian  wife,  by  whom  he  became  the  founder 
of  a  Persian  family. 

Miltiades,  immediately  on  his  return  to  Athens,  was 
impeached  by  his  democratic  enemies  for  “  tyranny  ”  in 
his  colony ;  but,  having  cleared  his  character,  he  was  at 
once  appointed  one  of  the  ten  Athenian  generals,  of 
whom  Callimachus,  the  polemarch,  or  minister  of  war, 
was  another.  They  could  not  have  been  much  more 
than  colonels,  except  on  the  days  when  they  held  the 
command  in  rotation ;  an  arrangement  which,  to  our 
English  notions,  would  be  fatal  to  the  success  of  any 
great  enterprise.  The  Athenians  were  as  fond  of  deci¬ 
mals  as  the  Persians  of  the  number  seven.  A  tradi¬ 
tional  10,000  Athenians  were  engaged  on  the  Greek 
side  at  Marathon.  But  the  Greeks  were  apt  to  under¬ 
estimate  their  own  numbers  and  exaggerate  those  of  the 
enemy.  Supposing  the  Persian  force  to  amount  in 
all  to  200,000  men,  making  deductions  for  the  guard 
of  the  ships  and  the  absent  cavalry,  they  probably 
brought  not  many  more  than  110,000  into  the  field, 
of  whom  30,000  were  heavy  armed.  The  Athenian 
light  armed  must  also  be  reckoned,  and  if  their  whole 
force  is  put  at  18,000,  with  2000  Plataeans,  the  odds 
still  leave  abundant  room  for  Hellenic  self-glorification. 
Before  the  Athenians  left  their  city,  they  had  sent  to 
Sparta  for  succour.  Their  courier  is  said  to  have 
reached  Sparta  on  foot — a  distance  of  140  English 
miles— on  the  second  day.  But  the  Spartans  had  an 
inveterate  superstition  against  marching  until  the 


13G 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


moon  was  full.  They  were  possibly  in  no  great  hurry 
to  help  Athens,  as,  when  they  did  come,  it  was  too 
late,  and  only  with  two  thousand  men.  The  Athen¬ 
ians  had  already  drawn  up  their  line  of  battle  in  the 
sacred  close  cf  Hercules,  at  Marathon,  when  they  were 
joined  by  the  Platseans.  The  Plataeans  had  suffered 
much  in  time  past  from  their  neighbours  the  Thebans, 
and  in  return  for  substantial  protection  had  bound 
themselves  to  Athens ;  in  fact  the  little  state  became 
a  satellite  of  the  greater. 

The  Greek  forces  seem  to  have  occupied  the  space 
between  Mount  Kotroni  and  Argaliki,  resting  their 
wings  against  the  heights,  which  prevented  their  being 
outflanked.  There  was  hesitation  as  to  beginning 
the  attack.  On  the  one  hand,  the  Athenians  rested 
on  their  own  supplies,  and  could  take  their  time  5 
and  the  Spartan  contingent,  though  tardy,  might  be 
expected  to  march  in  six  days,  when  the  moon  would 
be  at  the  full.  On  the  other  hand,  treachery  was 
feared  from  the  party  of  Hippias  in  Athens,  if 
there  was  any  delay.  The  generals  were  equally 
divided,  but  Miltiades  was  for  immediate  action,  and 
persuaded  Callimachus  to  give  his  casting-vote  with 
him.  By  what  arrangement  it  happened  is  not 
clear,  but  it  is  certain  that  when ,  the  day  for  action 
came,  the  command  was  in  the  hands  of  Miltiades. 
Why  the  attack  was  made  on  the  particular  day  it  is 
difficult  to  determine.  Some  suppose  that  Miltiades, 
with  an  inspiration  like  that  of  Wellington  at  Sala¬ 
manca,  saw  his  advantage  in  a  temporary  absence 
of  the  Persian  cavalry.  Certain  it  is  that  no  cavalry 
are  heard  of  in  the  action,  which  seems  singular,  as 
Hippias  is  said  to  have  chosen  the  spot  for  their  bene* 


MARA  TIIOX. 


137 


fit.*  The  armies  stood  fronting  each  other.  Callima¬ 
chus  was  on  the  right  wing,  and  the  Platseans  on  the  left. 
The  right  was  always  the  post  of  honour  and  of  danger, 
because  the  last  man  had  his  side  unprotected  by  a  shield. 
When  the  Greek  line  was  formed,  it  appeared  too  short 
as  compared  with  that  of  the  Persians  ;  so  Miltiades, 
no  doubt  with  some  misgivings,  drew  troops  from  his 
centre  and  massed  them  on  the  wings,  in  order  that 
they  might  deploy  when  they  cam-ed|^o^th^feMerL 
There  was  nearly  a  mile  of  ground  to  l?e,  cleared  pentre 
arriving  at  the  enemy’s  line ;  ai^k'it  was  advisable 
to  lose  as  few  men  as  possible  from  arrows  before 
coming  to  the  thrust  of  spears.  Miltiades  therefore 
gave  the  signal  to  charge  at  quick  step,  which  was 
increased  to  a  run  when  within  ravage.  The  Persians, 
on  their  side,  prepared  to  give  them  a  warm  recep¬ 
tion,  though  they  thought  the  Gre^r^iac 
ing  so  wildly,  unsupported  by  archers 
they  had  scarcely  time  for  admiration  of  their  enemies 
before  they  were  in  upon  them.  The  two  armies 
wrestled  long  and  desperately  before  advantage  de¬ 
clared  itself  for  either.  At  last  the  swaying  line  of 
combat  parted  into  three  fragments,  which  moved  in 
different  directions.  In  the  centre,  where  the  Persians 
and  Sacae  were  posted,  the  Athenians  were  rolled  back, 
probably  no  farther  than  the  slope  of  Kotroni,  where 
they  could  stand  at  bay,  though  Herodotus  says  they 
were  pursued  up  the  valley.  On  the  wings  they  were 


*  Mr  Blakesley  thinks  that  they  had  not  yet  been  disem¬ 
barked,  but  were  still  at  Eretria  ;  and  perhaps  it  was  for  this 
reason  that  the  Persians  kept  their  position  close  to  the  shore 
for  so  long  a  time,  and  did  not  attempt  to  outflank  by  the  hills 
an  enemy  numerically  so  inferior. 


138 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


victorious ;  and  the  allies  of  the  Persians  who  were 
there,  retiring  creditably  enough,  with  their  faces  to  the 
enemy,  did  not  see  the  marshes  behind  them,  but  floun¬ 
dered  into  them  backwards..  There  was  struggling  to 
regain  a  footing,  and  general  confusion,  of  which  the 
Greeks  took  advantage,  and  pressed  them  harder  till 
they  were  hopelessly  broken  and  discomfited.  But  the 
victorious  wings  now  perceived  that  their  own  centre 
was  dislocated  from  them,  and  had  lost  ground  before 
the  elite  of  the  Persian  army ;  they  therefore  faced 
about  and  fell  on  their  flanks.  The  Persian  centre, 
now  engaged  on  three  sides,  at  last  gave  way  likewise, 
and  fell  back  in  the  direction  of  their  galleys.  Covered 
probably  by  the  archers  from  the  decks,  most  of  the 
troops  got  safe  on  board.  Then  the  Greeks  raised  a 
yell  of  disappointment,  called  for  fire  to  burn  the 
ships,  and  many  rushed  into  the  water  to  try  to  board 
them.  One  of  the  foremost  of  these  was  Cynegeirus, 
brother  to  the  poet  iEschylus ;  but  as  he  grasped 
the  stern-ornament  of  a  trireme,  he  dropt  back  with 
both  his  hands  chopped  off.  Some  say  that  he  main¬ 
tained  his  hold  until  he  lost  first  one  hand,  then  the 
other,  and  lastly  his  head,  as  he  caught  the  gunwale 
with  his  teeth. 

So  ended  the  immortal  battle  of  Marathon,  which 
stands  almost  alone  by  the  side  of  Morgarten  among 
the  miracles  achieved  by  the  inspiration  of  Freedom. 
The  Persians  were  sufficiently  beaten,  but  their  rout 
could  hardly  have  been  so  complete  as  Herodotus  de¬ 
scribes,  since  they  had  not  far  to  run.  They  lost  six 
thousand  four  hundred  men,  mostly  in  the  swamps,  and 
seven  galleys,  held  back  by  main  force  or  carried  by 
boarding.  It  was  in  the  fight  at  the  ships  that,  besides 


MARA  THON. 


139 


Cynegeirus,  many  Athenians  of  note  fell,  amongst  them 
two  of  the  generals,  one  of  whom  was  Callimachus.  The 
Athenians  lost  one  hundred  and  ninety-two  men  in  the 
action.  As  the  greater  number  are  said  to  have  fallen 
in  the  attack  on  the  ships,  either  those  who  gave 
way  before  the  Persians  anti  Sacse  were  few,  or  they 
only  suffered  a  partial  repulse.  Greek  armies,  from 
their  formation  in  compact  phalanx,  seldom  lost  many 
men  until  they  were  broken,  when  their  long  spears 
and  heavy  armament  rendered  them  more  defenceless 
than  lighter  troops.  Marathon  afterwards  became  a 
household  word  at  Athens,  as  Waterloo  with  us.  A 
“  man  who  had  fought  at  Marathon  ”  had  a  patent  of 
popular  nobility.  Athenian  orators  made  it  a  favourite 
commonplace ;  and  Athenian  satirists  found  it  an  in¬ 
exhaustible  fund  of  jest  upon  the  national  vanity.  W  on- 
derful  stories  were  related  in  connection  with  the  battle. 
On  the  return  of  Pheidippides  the  courier  from  Sparta, 
he  said  that  as  he  was  crossing  a  mountain  in  Arcadia 
he  was  accosted  by  the  wood-god  Pan,  who  called  to 
him  by  name,  and  complained  of  his  worship  being 
neglected  by  the  Athenians,  while  he  was  always  well 
disposed  towards  them.  In  consequence,  a  temple  was 
dedicated  to  Pan  under  the  Acropolis,  and  he  was 
honoured  with  annual  sacrifices  and  a  torch -race. 
National  heroes  were  supposed  to  have  been  present, 
and  to  have  assisted  in  the  fight ;  and  one  Athenian 
was  suddenly  struck  blind  in  the  thick  of  the  fray  by 
(as  he  declared)  the  passing  before  his  eyes  of  a  super¬ 
natural  giant,  who  slew  the  man  at  his  side. 

When  the  Persians  had  re  -  embarked,  their  fleet 
doubled  Cape  Sunium,  and  made  a  demonstration  in 
the  direction  of  the  harbour  of  Athens,  with  the  hope 


HO 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


of  surprising  the  city ;  "but  the  Athenians  returned  in 
time  to  cover  it.  There  was  an  ugly  rumour,  which 
Herodotus  entirely  disbelieves,  that  a  shield  was  hoisted 
on  the  walls  as  a  telegraphic  signal  by  the  Alcmaeonids. 
This,  doubtless,  emanated  from  the  opposite  faction ; 
for  the  Isagorids  and  Alcmaeonids  of  Athens  hated 
each  other  as  cordially,  and  slandered  each  other  as 
unscrupulously,  as  the  English  Tories  and  Whigs  of 
the  time  of  Queen  Anne. 

The  tale  of  the  subsequent  fate  of  Miltiades  is  one 
of  the  most  painful  passages  in  history.  In  the  first 
flush  of  his  popularity,  he  asked  the  Athenians  to  give 
him  seventy  ships  fully  equipped,  only  deigning  to 
tell  them  that  he  would  get  them  gold  in  abundance. 
They  asked  no  questions,  but  gave  him  the  fleet.  He 
had  a  private  grudge  against  the  people  of  Paros,  and 
he  now  sailed  to  the  island  of  marble,  and  laid  siege  to 
its  town.  His  patience  began  to  be  at  an  end,  when 
a  certain  priestess  offered  to  forward  his  views.  In 
leaping  the  wall  of  the  sacred  precincts  after  an  inter¬ 
view  with  her,  he  dislocated  his  thigh.  He  then 
returned  to  Athens  disabled,  and  as  soon  as  he  arrived 
was  put  upon  his  trial  on  the  capital  charge  of  having 
deceived  the  state,  his  accuser  being  Xanthippus, 
father  of  the  great  Pericles.  The  crippled  hero  lay 
on  a  couch  in  court  while  his  friends  defended  him. 
They  could  not  say  a  word  in  extenuation  of  the 
Parian  escapade,  but  rested  his  defence  on  the  fact 
that  he  had  saved  Athens  at  Marathon,  and  regained 
Lemnos.  But,  unfortunately  for  Miltiades,  this  was 
not  the  first  time  that  he  had  had  to  appear  on  a  charge 
of  like  nature.  It  seemed  as  if  he  wished  to  make 
himself  despot  of  Paros  —  perhaps  even  despot  of 


MARA  T HON’. 


141 


Athens — as  he  had  made  himself  despot  of  the  Cher¬ 
sonese.  It  was  not  for  this  that  they  had  got  rid  of 
Hippias.  If  he  commanded  well  at  Marathon,  so  did 
the  other  generals,  two  of  them  now  no  more ;  nay, 
every  man  who  fought  in  those  ranks  seemed  as  good  a 
hero  as  he,  for  Marathon,  like  Inkermann,  was  a  “  sol¬ 
dier’s  battle.”  If  he  took  Lemnos,  he  had  missed  taking 
Paros,  and  wasted  the  public  money  at  a  time  when  the 
treasury  was  low.  They  had  not  the  heart  to  condemn 
him  to  death,  for  as  he  lay  before  them  be  seemed  to 
bear  death’s  mark  already — and,  indeed,  it  must  have 
appeared  to  them  as  impossible  as  for  the  king  of  Italy 
to  punish  Garibaldi  for  treason  after  his  wound  at 
Aspromonte ;  but  they  condemned  him  in  the  expenses 
of  the  abortive  expedition,  amounting  to  fifty  talents 
(above  .£12,000).  As  his  son  Cimon  was  able  to  pay 
these  heavy  damages,  his  judges  seem  to  have  had  no 
intention  of  absolutely  ruining  him.  Soon  afterwards, 
physical  mortification  in  the  injured  limb,  assisted  no 
doubt  by  mental,  put  an  untimely  end  to  the  days  of 
the  Man  of  Marathon. 


CHAPTER  X, 


THERMOPYLAE. 


ct  Singing  of  men  that  in  battle  array, 
Ready  in  heart  and  ready  in  hand, 
March  with  banner,  and  bugle,  and  fife. 
To  the  death,  for  their  native  land.” 


— Tennyson,  “  Ma  id.” 


After  the  terrible  defeat  of  his  best  generals  at  Mara¬ 
thon,  Darius  thought  the  Athenians  worth  his  personal 
attention.  That  battle  took  place  in  the  autumn  ol 
B.c.  490  \  and  the  king  occupied  the  next  three  years 
in  preparations  for  a  new  expedition,  which  he  in¬ 
tended  to  lead  in  person.  But  a  revolt  in  Egypt  divided 
his  attention ;  and  he  was  considering  in  which  direc¬ 
tion  he  was  most  wanted,  when  he  was  summoned 
from  the  scene  by  a  mightier  monarch  than  himself, 
after  a  reign  of  six-and-thirty  years.  His  fourth  son, 
Xerxes,  succeeded  him — not  his  first-born,  Artabazanes ; 
because  Xerxes  had  been  born  in  the  purple,  and  of  a 
daughter  of  Cyrus ;  whereas  the  elder  sons  had  been 
b(trn  when  Darius  was  a  subject,  and  of  the  daughter 
of  a  subject.  Xerxes  soon  disposed  of  the  Egyptian 
revolt,  and  left  his  brother  Achaemenes  satrap  of  the 
country.  Then  he  took  up  the  great  quarrel  bequeathed 


TRERMOPYL  M. 


143 


him  by  his  father,  hut  after  many  hesitations  and 
vacillations,  signified  in  the  narrative  of  Herodotus 
by  dreams  and  their  interpretations,  and  opposite 
opinions  said  to  have  been  given  by  Artabanus, 
who  dissuaded,  and  Mardonius,  who  was  in  favour 
of  an  invasion.  The  young  king  was  evidently 
afraid  of  compromising  his  newly  -  inherited  pros¬ 
perity.  He  was  of  a  luxurious  character,  not  crav¬ 
ing,  like  Darius,  for  barren  honour ;  and  if  he  left 
the  Greeks  alone,  it  would  be  a  long  time  before  they 
found  their  w'ay  to  Susa.  When  the  bolder  counsels 
at  last  prevailed,  he  resolved  to  make  matters  as  safe 
as  possible.  Grecian  liberty  was  not  to  be  stabbed, 
but  stifled,  to  death.  He  would  pour  out  all  Asia  upon 
it.  So  he  took  four  good  years  in  preparation,  gather¬ 
ing  a  host  of  armed,  half-armed,  and  almost  unarmed 
men,  such  as  has  hardly  been  seen  before  or  since.  The 
soldiers,  with  the  exception  of  the  select  few,  carried 
the  rudest  national  weapons — bows  and  arrows,  pole¬ 
axes,  “  morning-stars,”  even  staves  and  lassoes.  Some 
rate  the  host  as  high  as  five  millions ;  others  give  less 
than  half  that  number.  The  men  were  measured,  like 
dry  goods — not  counted;  that  is,  a  pen  was  made 
which  could  hold  ten  thousand,  through  which  the 
whole  army  passed  in  successive  batches.  It  is  time, 
perhaps,  that  a  common  error  should  be  exploded,  into 
which,  however,  it  would  be  impossible  for  any  atten¬ 
tive  reader  of  Herodotus  to  fall.  No  schoolboy  be 
lieves  now,  as  elderly  men  did  when  they  were  boys, 
that  the  French  are  a  nation  of  cowards.  But  it  is 
possible  for  careless  readers  of  Greek  history  tc 
believe  that  the  Persians  were  cowards;  else,  they 
might  say,  how  should  they  have  been  beaten  by 


144 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS . 


so  small  a  number  of  Greeks?  And  were  they  not 
obliged  to  flog  their  soldiers  into  action?  Perhaps 
this  was  only  a  Greek  version  of  the  fact  that  corporal 
punishment  was  an  institution  in  their  army.  Amongst 
the  Greeks  it  was  confined  to  slaves.  The  lash  has  not 
prevented  Russians  and  Austrians — not  to  mention 
others — from  fighting  well.  Perhaps  the  native  Per¬ 
sians,  especially  those  of  noble  birth,  were  personally 
braver  than  the  Greeks.  But  the  Greeks  had  the  im¬ 
mense  advantage  of  discipline.  In  a  disciplined  army 
every  man  has  the  eyes  of  his  comrades  on  him,  and  if 
fear  is  felt,  it  cannot  act  for  very  shame,  and  because 
it  is  counteracted  by  mechanical  obedience.  Aristotle 
assigns  a  special  kind  of  courage  to  national  militias, 
which  all  Greek  armies  were,  which  he  calls  the  political 
courage,  springing  from  the  feeling  of  what  is  due  from 
the  individual  to  the  community.  This  may  not  be  cour¬ 
age  of  the  most  romantic  kind,  but  it  appears  to  answer 
its  end  perfectly ;  and  Nelson  thought  it  good  enough 
to  appeal  to  in  his  famous  watchword,  still  written  round 
the  wheel  of  our  war-ships — “  England  expects  every 
man  to  do  his  duty.”  This  kind  of  courage  culminated 
in  Leonidas.  The  Persian  officers  were  even  desperately 
brave,  and  always  led  the  charges  in  person,  which 
accounts  for  their  great  relative  loss  in  battles.  The 
Greek  officers  took  their  chance  with  the  rest,  being 
indistinguishable  from  the  privates  in  the  phalanx. 
Again,  the  numbers  of  their  armies  were  a  positive  dis¬ 
advantage  to  the  Persians ;  for  most  of  their  auxiliary 
troops,  when  brought  into  contact  with  real  soldiers, 
were  as  sheep  brought  to  the  shambles.  The  Greeks 
were  also  more  efficiently  armed.  The  Persian  infantry 
were  archers,  carrying  also  pikes  and  daggers,  who  (like 


THERMOPYLAE. 


14b 


tlie  English  crossbow-man  with  his  pavoise-hearer  in 
the  fifteenth  century)  made  a  bulwark  of  their  great 
oblong  wicker  shields,  as  may  be  seen  now  in  the  Nim- 
rud  sculptures,  and  shot  from  behind  them.  But  when 
this  bulwark  was  once  forced,  the  Persians  had  no  pro¬ 
tection  but  their  light  armour  against  the  strong  pikes 
of  the  Greeks.  Our  archers  turned  the  scale  of  battle 
against  superior  forces  at  Cressy  and  Poitiers,  because 
they  were  the  only  body  which  had  at  all  the  character 
cf  regular  troops. 

The  Persian  officers  had  in  some  respects  become 
luxurious  and  effeminate  even  in  the  time  of  Darius, 
riding  in  palanquins,  keeping  sumpter-camels,  and  so 
forth  ;  but  they  do  not  appear  to  have  been  worse  than 
our  Anglo-Indians,  who  have  never  been  reckoned  defi¬ 
cient  in  valour.  The  French  mousquetaires ,  who  fought 
under  Marshal  Saxe,  were  as  celebrated  for  their  foppery 
as  their  gallantry  in  the  field.  “  Hold  hard — the  dandies 
are  coming  !”  was  the  word  passed  from  one  British 
soldier  to  another,  when  their  laced  coats  and  three- 
cornered  hats  came  in  sight. 

There  is  no  need  to  follow  in  detail  all  the  pomp 
and  circumstance  of  the  slow  march  of  Xerxes  into 
Greece.  The  vast  army  crossed  from  Abydos  to  Sestos 
by  a  double  pontoon  bridge ;  and  Xerxes,  like  the 
spoiled  child  of  the  harem,  is  said  to  have  ordered  the 
Hellespont  to  be  scourged,  and  chains  to  be  thrown  into 
it,  and  branding-irons  to  be  plunged  into  the  hissing 
water,  because  a  storm  had  destroyed  the  work  when 
first  attempted.  He  is  also  said  to  have  cut  in  halves  the 
eldest  son  of  a  wealthy  Lydian,  who  had  made  him  an 
offer  of  all  his  property,  but  requested  that  one  of  his 
sons  might  be  left  behind ;  making  his  troops  defil« 

a.  c.  vol.  iii.  k 


MG  THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 

between  the  severed  portions,  by  way  of  raising  theii 
enthusiasm.  A  similar  story  is  told  of  Darius,  which 
appears,  in  his  case,  incredible.  The  great  interest  of 
the  expedition  begins  when  it  arrived  where  resistance 
might  be  expected  from  the  Greeks.  The  land-force 
which  marched  round  the  coast  was  accompanied  by 
more  than  twelve  hundred  war-galleys,  besides  a  multi¬ 
tude  of  other  craft.  The  navy  passed  through  a  new- 
made  ship-canal,  by  which  the  voyage  round  the  for¬ 
midable  headland  of  Athos  was  avoided.  Our  author 
says  the  work  was  done  in  mere  bravado,  since  the  skips 
might  have  been  drawn  across  the  narrow  neck  of  land 
with  less  labour  and  cost.  It  is  remarkable,  in  the 
cutting  of  this  canal  (a  work  of  three  years,  the 
traces  of  which  are  still  distinctly  visible),  that  all 
the  other  nations  were  senseless  enough  to  make  its 
sides  perpendicular,  which,  from  the  continual  landslips, 
gave  them  double  trouble  ;  while  the  Phoenicians  alone 
proved  themslves  as  good  “navvies”  as  navigators,  by 
making  their  cutting  twice  as  broad  at  top  as  at  bottom. 

The  news  of  the  approach  of  this  overwhelming 
host  struck  the  Greeks  with  consternation,  and  all  the 
northern  tribes,  including  the  Thebans,  submitted  to  the 
invader.  The  Athenians  were  alarmed  by  dark  oracles 
pointing  apparently  to  their  extermination,  but  con¬ 
taining  one  saving  clause,  that  they  might  find  safety 
in  their  “  wooden  walls.”  They  wisely  interpreted 
this  to  mean  their  ships.  Their  troublesome  war  with 
the  AEginetans  proved  now  an  advantage,  as  it  had 
forced  them  to  make'large  additions  to  their  navy,  the 
former  poverty  of  which  has  been  mentioned.  Envoys 
were  sent  for  aid  to  Argos,  Sicily,  Corey ra,  and  Crete. 
The  Argives  might  be  well  excused  for  declining,  as  Cleo 


THERMOPYLAE. 


147 


menes  had  just  massacred  six  thousand  out  of  their  not 
probably  more  than  ten  thousand  citizens.  Gelon,  the 
king  of  Syracuse,  would  have  assisted,  had  not  Sicily 
been  just  then  invaded  by  a  miscellaneous  army  of  threo 
hundred  thousand  men  under  the  command  of  the  Car¬ 
thaginian  Hamilcar,  possibly  induced,  through  the  Phoe¬ 
nicians,  to  make  this  diversion  in  favour  of  Xerxes. 
Gelon  had  the  good  fortune  to  destroy  this  host  in  the 
decisive  battle  of  Himera,  on  the  same  day  as  the  Greek 
victory  at  Salamis.  The  Corcyraeans  temporised,  with 
their  historical  selfishness  ;  the  Cretans  excused  them¬ 
selves  on  the  faith  of  an  oracle  ;  so  the  Greeks  proper 
were  left  to  face  their  terrible  enemy  alone,  and  even 
among  them  there  were  many  craven  spirits  who  took 
the  side  of  the  Persian. 

Thessaly,  through  which  the  course  of  the  invaders 
lay,  is  a  basin  of  mountains,  like  Bohemia,  cracked 
by  the  gorge  of  the  Peneus,  as  Bohemia  is  by  that 
of  the  Elbe.  This  basin  was  doubtless,  as  Herodo¬ 
tus  says,  once  a  lake,  until  it  was  tapped  by  some 
convulsion  of  nature.  Xerxes  thought  flooding  the 
country  quite  feasible,  by  damming  up  the  outlet  of  the 
river :  no  such  measure,  however,  was  necessary.  At 
first  the  Greeks  had  intended  to  make  their  stand  there, 
in  the  Yale  of  Tempe,  celebrated  for  its  beauty.  Over¬ 
hung  by  plane-woods,  the  high  elilfs  are  festooned 
with  creepers,  and  diversified  with  underwood,  approach¬ 
ing  here  and  there  so  closely  as  to  leave  barely  room  for 
the  road  and  river.  But  they  gave  up  this  position 
when  they  found  that  Thessaly  could  easily  be  entered 
by  another  road  over  the  mountains.  They  drew  back 
towards  the  isthmus :  and  Thessaly  at  once  made 
terms  with  the  Persian  king. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


1  4:3 


It  was  now  decided  to  make  the  first  stand  at  the 
narrow  pass  of  Thermopylae  (Hotwells-Gate),  tlie  key 
of  Greece  itself.  The  river  Spercheius  has  since 
established  a  tract  of  alluvial  deposit  between  the 
mountain  and  the  sea,  but  the  hot  springs  are  still 
there,  in  pools  of  clear  water,  and  the  other  features 
of  the  scene  remain  much  as  they  were  in  the  time 
of  Herodotus.  The  pass  leads  along  the  shore  from 
Thessaly  to  Locris.  The  Grecian  fleet  were  to  support 
the  army  in  the  narrow  strait  by  Artemisium,  on  the 
head  of  Euboea  (Xegropont).  As  the  Persian  host 
rolled  on,  it  had  increased  like  a  snowball,  imbib¬ 
ing  the  contingents  of  all  the  districts  that  sub¬ 
mitted.  But  the  elements  were  still  against  the 
invaders.  A  storm  arose  when  their  fleet  was  off  Mag¬ 
nesia,  attributed  by  the  Athenians  to  the  intervention 
of  Boreas  (the  1ST orth  Wind),  who  had  married  a  daugh¬ 
ter  of  their  mythical  king  Ereclitlieus.  At  least  four 
hundred  galleys  perished,  and  so  much  wealth  was  cast 
ashore  that  the  wreckers  on  the  coast  became  rich  men  ; 
and  the  Persians  soon  after  lost  fifteen  ships  more, 
which  mistook  the  enemy’s  fleet  for  their  own.  Xerxes 
was  himself  with  the  land-force,  which  had  now  oc¬ 
cupied  the  territory  of  Trachis,  north  of  the  pass  of 
Thermopylae.  The  little  Greek  army  had  posted  itself 
behind  an  ancient  wall,  which  barred  the  pass,  and 
which  they  had  repaired,  at  a  spot  where  there  was 
only  room  for  a  single  chariot-road.  The  nucleus  of 
the  force  (in  all  under  8000  of  all  arms)  was  three 
hundred  tliorough-hred  Spartans,  each  attended  by  his 
seven  Helots.  They  were  all  fathers  of  families,  who 
had  left  sons  at  Lome  to  succeed  them.  At  their 
head  was  Leonidas,  now  senior  king  of  Sparta.  This 


THERMOPYLAE. 


149 


small  force  was  expected  to  "be  able  to  hold  the  pass 
until  the  rest  were  disengaged  ;  for  the  Spartans  were 
keeping  a  local  feast,  and  the  other  Greeks  were  en¬ 
gaged  at  the  great  Olympian  festival.  Perhaps  the  very 
extremity  of  the  danger  made  the  Greeks  put  their  re¬ 
ligious  duties  in  the  foreground ;  and,  indeed,  Leonidas 
and  his  men  went  out  as  to  an  expected  sacrifice.  A 
Persian  scout  reported  to  Xerxes  that  he  found  the 
Spartans  busy  dressing  their  hair.  In  surprise  the 
king  appealed  for  explanation  to  his  refugee  guest 
Demaratus,  the  banished  king  of  Sparta,  whom  he 
had  brought  to  Greece  in  his  train.  The  Spartan 
warned  him  that  it  betokened,  on  the  part  of  his 
countrymen,  a  resistance  to  the  death.  Usually  care¬ 
less  of  their  dress,  there  was  one  occasion  when  they 
polished  their  arms,  combed  their  long  hair  and 
wreathed  it  with  flowers,  and  put  on  scarlet  vests ;  it 
was  when  they  expected  a  battle  which  they  might 
not  survive.  Xerxes  waited  four  days  to  see  if  they 
would  retire,  and  then  ordered  his  Medes  and  Cissians 
to  bring  them  to  him  in  chains.  For  a  whole  day 
these  made  repeated  attacks,  and  were  as  often  re¬ 
pulsed  with  heavy  loss.  The  Persian  “  Immortals  ” 
were  then  launched  at  them,  and  fared  no  better. 
These  troops  were  so  called  because  they  were  always 
kept  up  to  the  exact  number  of  ten  thousand,*  and  re¬ 
presented  the  Imperial  Guard.  Often  pretending  flight, 
so  as  to  draw  them  on  in  loose  pursuit,  the  Greeks 
turned  on  their  enemies  and  butchered  them.  Oi.e 
would  have  thought  that  this  affair  in  the  front  would 
have  made  little  impression  on  that  dense  host ;  but 

*  The  forty  members  of  the  French  Academy  are  so  nick' 
named  for  the  same  reason. 


150 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


Xerxes  is  said  to  have  leapt  thrice  from  his  throne  as 
the  wave  of  disturbance  reached  him,  fearing  for  his 
whole  army.  On  the  third  day  a  native  guide  came 
and  t>ld  the  king  of  a  pass  over  the  mountains,  by. 
which  the  Greeks  might  be  taken  in  rear,  and  he 
selected  Hydarnes,  the  commander  of  the  Immortals,  for 
this  important  service.  The  crest  of  this  pass  (the 
existence  of  which,  the  Greeks  had  learned  too  late) 
was  watched  on  their  behalf  by  a  thousand  Phocians, 
who  wrere  warned  by  hearing  the  rustling  of  the 
dry  leaves  of  the  oak-wood,  but  thinking  an  attack  on 
their  own  post  was  intended,  retired  to  a  more  defens¬ 
ible  position,  and  let  Hydarnes  pass  on.  The  way  in 
which  the  little  band  of  heroes  received  the  announce¬ 
ment  that  their  position  had  been  turned  should  be 
told  in  Herodotus's  own  words  : — 

“  First,  the  soothsayer  Megistias,  as  he  inspected 
the  sacrifices,  warned  them  of  the  death  which  awaited 
them  with  the  morrow’s  dawn.  Then  came  some 
deserters,  who  told  them  of  the  march  of  the  Persians 
round  the  hill.  All  this  was  while  it  wTas  still  night. 
Then,  when  the  day  had  broken,  their  scouts  came 
running  down  from  the  heights  with  the  same  news. 
Thereupon  the  Greeks  took  counsel,  and  their  opinions 
were  divided  :  for  some  would  not  hear  of  quitting 
their  post,  while  others  advised  to  do  so.  Then  they 
parted  asunder,  and  some  went  off  and  dispersed  each 
to  their  own  cities,  and  some  prepared  to  remain  there 
with  Leonidas.  It  is  even  said  that  Leonidas  himself 
sent  them  away,  anxious  that  they  should  not  be  slain  : 
but  for  himself  and  the  Spartans  who  were  there,  it 
■was  not  seemly,  he  said,  for  them  to  leave  a  post  which 
they  had  once  undertaken  to  keep.” 


THERMOPYLAE. 


151 


Those  who  chose  the  nobler  alternative,  besides 
the  Spartans  and  their  Laconian  subjects  and  Helot 
slaves,  who  could  not  help  themselves,  were  seven 
hundred  Thespians  and  four  hundred  Thebans — the 
latter,  our  author  says,  detained  as  hostages,  but 
probably  proscribed  at  home  for  refusing  to  submit, 
like  the  rest,  to  Xerxes.  The  struggle  now  could 
have  but  one  issue.  Xerxes  ordered  a  general  attack 
at  daybreak,  and  Leonidas,  in  order  to  sell  the  lives 
of  his  men  as  dearly  as  possible,  ordered  them  to 
advance  from  the  defile  itself,  and  attack  in  the  open. 
The  Persians  perished  in  crowds — some  driven  into 
the  sea,  some  trampled  to  death  by  their  comrades, 
others  urged  forward  by  stripes  only  to  fall  on  the 
deadly  lances  of  the  Greeks. 

Dead  weight,  however,  began  to  tell  against  the 
latter,  when  they  had  broken  their  spears  in  bar¬ 
barian  bodies,  and  had  used  .tlieir  swords  till  they 
were  weary.  At  last  Leonidas  fell,  and  over  his  body 
the  struggle  was  renewed  more  furiously  than  ever. 

“  The  dead  around  him  on  that  day 
In  a  semicircle  lay.” 

In  that  swathe  of  corpses  were  found  two  brothers 
of  Xerxes.  Four  times  the  Greeks  repulsed  the  enemy, 
and  at  last  bore  off  the  body  of  their  king.  They  had 
but  short  breathing-space.  Their  hour  was  come,  when 
the  fatal  troops  of  Hydarncs  came  covui  the  hills  in 
their  rear.  The  survivors  drew  back  into  the  nar¬ 
rowest  part  of  the  pass,  within  the  wall,  and  posted 
themselves  on  a  hillock,  where  a  stone  lion  afterwards 
marked  the  resting-place  of  Leonidas.  So  did  the  sur 


152 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS 


vivors  of  the  Khyber  Pass  massacre  in  1841  draw 
together  for  a  last  stand  on  the  hillock  at  Gundamuck, 
whence  a  single  officer  escaped  to  Peshawur  to  tell  that 
the  British  army  was  exterminated. 

The  four  hundred  Thebans  saved  themselves  by  a 
timely  surrender;  the  remaining  four  thousand  Greeks 
were  buried  in  a  hail- shower  of  missiles.  Herodotus 
awards  the  palm  of  valour  to  a  Spartan  wit,  who,  when 
lie  was  told  that  the  Persian  arrows  would  darken  the 
air,  said,  “  Then  we  shall  have  but  a  shadow-fight  ” 
(or  sliam-fight).  Such  a  man  would  have  appreciated 
the  ghastly  witticisms  of  the  guillotine  in  the  French 
Revolution.  Xerxes,  with  an  indecency  towards  the 
dead  quite  opposed  to  all  Persian  usage,  had  the  head 
of  Leonidas  cut  off,  and  fixed  upon  a  pole. 

The  Greek  combined  fleet  was  commanded  by  the 
Spartan  Eurybiades.  ‘  The  Spartans  would  only  co¬ 
operate  on  condition  that  the  command  should  be  theirs, 
though  they  only  furnished  ten  ships,  while  the  Athen¬ 
ians  mustered  one  hundred  and  twenty-seven.  Spar¬ 
tan  provincialism  forms  a  strong  contrast  to  the  national 
patriotism  of  the  little  state  of  Plataea,  which  threw 
itself  heart  and  soul  into  the  cause  of  Greek  inde¬ 
pendence.  Though  landsmen,  the  Platseans  helped  to 
man  the  Athenian  fleet.  They  were  afterwards  re¬ 
warded  by  vile  ingratitude  from  Sparta,  and  lukewarm 
friendship  from  Athens. 

The  whole  naval  strength  counted  two  hundred  and 
seventy-one  three-banked  galleys.  The  Persian  dis¬ 
aster  in  Hie  storm  had  now  been  balanced  by  a 
Greek  disaster  in  the  field  ;  and  the  barometer  of  Hel¬ 
lenic  confidence  fell  again.  There  was  even  talk  of 


THERMOPYLAE. 


153 


Leaving  Euboea  to  its  fate,  ancl  retreating  southwards. 
Themistocles,  the  Athenian  commander,  was  a  man 
who  had  raised  himself  to  a  foremost  position  from 
small  beginnings,  which  may  account  for  his  under¬ 
standing  so  wTell  the  use  and  power  of  money.  If 
Mammon  was  one  of  his  gods,  he  could  make  him  his 
servant  for  good  as  well  as  for  evil.  The  Euboeans, 
alarmed  for  their  families  and  goods,  besought  the 
Spartan  admiral  not  to  desert  them ;  and  finding 
him  impracticable,  applied  to  Themistocles — this  time 
backing  their  prayers  with  a  present  of  thirty  talents. 
Themistocles  knew  Eurybiades  better  than  they,  and 
gave  him  five  talents  out  of  the  thirty,  as  if  they  had 
come  from  himself,  or  from  the  treasury  of  the  Athen¬ 
ians,  and  three  more  to  Adeimantus  the  Corinthian, 
whose  valour,  among  all  the  national  commanders, 
seemed  most  strongly  tempered  with  discretion.  The 
rest  of  this  secret-service  money  he  kept  for  himself. 

The  Persians,  in  great  fear  lest  the  Greek  fleet  should 
escape  them  under  cover  of  night,  detached  two  hun¬ 
dred  ships,  with  orders  to  sail  round  outside  Euboea, 
and  back  up  the  strait  between  the  island  and  the 
mainland,  and  so  block  in  the  enemy. 

The  battle— or  rather  battles,  for  there  were  three 
— of  Artemisium  began  by  desultory  and  provocative 
attacks  on  the  part  of  the  Greeks,  Avho,  when  they 
had  brought  the  whole  Persian  fleet  upon  them,  rolled 
theirs  up  like  a  hedgehog  or  porcupine,  with  the 
spines  outside.  They  drew  their  sterns  all  together, 
and  formed  a  circle  with  their  sharp  beaks  turned  every 
way.  In  the  first  melee  thirty  ships  were  taken  from 
the  Persians.  The  battle  lasted  through  the  mid¬ 
summer  evening,  and  then  each  fleet  withdrew  to  its 


154 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


mooring.  The  sea  was  like  oil,  and  that  ominous  calm 
udgneo.  from  which  better  sailors  than  the  Greeks 
would  have  foretold  storm.  At  midnight  it  thundered 
and  lightened  on  Mount  Pelion,  the  wind  rose,  and 
the  wrecks  and  bodies  were  drifted  to  tire  station  of 
the  Persian  fleet,  and  struck  the  crews  with  dismay. 
But  it  fared  worse  with  their  detached  division,  which 
was  utterly  destroyed  on  the  rocks  on  the  outer  coast 
of  Bubcea.  Thus  did  the  good  wind  Boreas  still  seem 
to  help  his  friends.  A  reinforcement  of  fifty -three 
fresh  Athenian  galleys  came  up  at  daybreak,  having 
escaped  the  storm  inside  the  island.  The  ancient  wa'  • 
ships,  even  the  great  “  five-bankers  ”  of  the  Romans  ar  i 
Carthaginians,  could  stand  no  more  weather  than  a 
river  -  steam  er  ;  while  their  great  rounded  Dutch- built 
merchant-ships  would  ride  out  a  moderate  gale  fairly. 
On  the  afternoon  of  the  second  day  the  Greeks  attacked 
again,  and  sank  some  Cilician  vessels.  On  the  third 
day  about  noon  the  Persians  began  the  attack,  while 
the  Greeks  kept  their  station  at  Artemisinin.  There 
was  much  fouling  among  the  Persians  from  their  closelv- 
packed  vessels,  but  they  fought  well,  and  neither  side 
could  claim  much  advantage.  The  Athenians  gained 
most  distinction  among  the  allies  ;  and  of  the  Athenians 
Cleinias,  son  of  Alcibiades,  and  father  of  him  of  that 
name  who  afterwards  was  the  representative  Athenian 
of  the  new  school.  He  had  manned  and  equipped  his 
trireme  at  his  own  expense.  The  Greeks  remained 
masters  of  the  field — that  is,  of  the  scene  of  action, 
with  the  bodies  and  wrecks ;  but  as  half  the  Athenian 
fleet  had  been  more  or  less  damaged,  they  decided  on 
withdrawing  southward,  especially  as  they  now  heard  of 
the  loss  of  Thermopylae.  Before  he  went,  Tbemistocles 


THERMOPYLAE. 


155 


bad  inscriptions  graven  on  the  rocks  by  all  the  water- 
ing-places,  exhorting  the  Ionian  Greeks  now  in  the 
service  of  Persia  to  desert.  If  this  had  no  effect  on 
those  to  whom  they  were  addressed,  it  would  at  any 
rate  make  them  objects  of  suspicion  to  the  Persians. 
Then  the  Greeks  sailed  away — the  Corinthians  first, 
the  Athenians,  as  became  them,  last. 

While  the  Persian  sailors  and  marines  were  wasting 
the  north  of  Euboea,  a  herald  came  from  Xerxes  order¬ 
ing  a  day’s  leave  ashore  to  be  given,  that  the  crews 
might  view  the  field  of  Thermopylae.  On  the  Greek 
side  were  four  thousand  bodies  in  a  heap,  which  the 
king  pretended  were  all  Spartans  or  Thespians ;  on 
his  side  lay  about  a  thousand,  scattered  all  over  the 
field.  The  rest  of  the  Persians  had  been  carefully 
buried  beforehand  ;  but  the  trick  deceived  nobody. 

The  Persian  army  now  advanced  and  ravaged  Phocis, 
and  on  the  farther  frontier  parted  into  two  divisions, 
the  larger  entering  the  friendly  territory  of  Bceotia, 
and  making  for  Athens — the  smaller  proceeding  to¬ 
wards  Delphi.  Xerxes  was  well  instructed  as  to  the 
wealth  of  Apollo’s  temple,  and  must  have  known  by 
heart  all  the  costly  offerings  that  Croesus  had  made. 
The  Delphians  in  dismay  consulted  their  oracle  :  the 
god  replied  that  “he  could  protect  his  own.”  Just 
when  the  enemy  reached  the  ascent  to  the  temple,  a 
thunderstorm  burst  forth,  and  great  rocks  came  rolling 
down  the  steep  of  Parnassus.  The  Persians  fled,  and 
the  Delphians,  assisted  apparently  by  two  supernatural 
warriors,  emerged  from  their  hiding-places  and  slew 
the  hindermost.  The  priests  of  Apollo  were  doubtless 
adepts  in  the  machinery  of  the  stage. 


CHAPTER  XL 


SALAMIS. 

*•  The  man  of  firm  and  righteous  will. 

No  rabble,  clamorous  for  the  wrong. 

No  tyrant’s  brow,  whose  frown  may  kill. 

Can  shake  the  strength  that  makes  him  strong: 

Not  winds,  that  chafe  the  sea  they  sway. 

Nor  Jove’s  right  hand,  with  lightning  red: 

Should  Nature’s  pillared  frame  give  way. 

That  wreck  would  strike  one  fearless  head.” 

— Conington’s  ‘  Horace.’ 

\ 

Such  is  tlie  portrait  of  Themistocles,  as  drawn  by  Kaul- 
bach  of  Munich,  in  his  great  cartoon  of  the  battle  of 
Salamis.  He  stands  at  ease  on  the  deck  of  his  galley, 
sacrificing  to  the  gods  while  the  battle  is  ending.  We 
feel  that  he  would  be  as  composed  and  dignified,  only 
somewhat  sadder,  if  the  ruin  were  coming  on  him 
instead  of  on  the  enemy.  The  very  self-seeking  of 
this  remarkable  man  in  the  midst  of  the  most  excit¬ 
ing  circumstances  bears  testimony  to  the  admirable 
balance  of  his  nature.  He  somewhat  resembles  Marl¬ 
borough,  of  whom,  for  all  his  romantic  courage, 
Macaulay  too  severely  says,  that  in  his  youth  he  loved 
lucre  more  than  wine  or  women,  and  in  his  middle 
age  he  loved  lucre  more  than  power  or  glory.  But  it 


SALA  MIS. 


157 


must  be  remembered  that  Themistocles  was  a  Greek, 
and  the  versatile  Ulysses  is  the  very  type  of  a  Greek 
hero.  It  was  not  in  the  Greek  character  to  vie  with 
Darius  in  his  right  royal  disdain  of  petty  advantage 
and  private  revenge.  The  Greeks  would  have  made  far 
better  “  hucksters  ”  than  that  king,  who  Avas  so  called 
by  his  nobles  because  he  was  a  good  financier.  And 
Themistocles  w^as  a  first-rate  example  of  the  middle- 
class  burgher,  as  “the  curled  Alcibiacles ”  was  of  the 
“  gilded  youth  ”  of  a  cultivated  Greek  republic.  He 
was  Presence-of-mind  incarnate.  But  he  was  honest 
withal — with  the  honesty  of  a  good  Jew  with  whom 
one  might  safely  deposit  millions,  but  who  would  not 
fail  to  make  every  shilling  breed.  And  he  was  a 
patriot  —  one  who  would  die  for  his  country  at  any 
moment,  but  was  far  too  sensible  to  believe  in  her  or 
to  trust  her.  The  sequel  of  his  life  showed  that  he 
was  right.  Themistocles,  though  not  the  highest  type 
of  man,  is  perhaps  the  most  perfect  specimen  of  the 
Greek  on  record. 

The  Athenians  had  hoped  that  the  combined  Greek 
forces  would  make  a  stand  in  Boeotia,  but  in  this  they 
were  disappointed.  The  primary  object  of  the  Spartans 
was  to  take  care  of  themselves;  their  secondary  object 
to  save  Greece,  that  they  might  rule  it.  They  wished 
the  Athenians  out  of  their  way,  but  they  felt  that  if 
the  fire  spread  to  them,  it  would  be  coming  somewhat 
close  to  their  ' own  home.  Could  they  not  sacrilice 
Athens,  and  save  the  Athenians,  who  would  then  be 
their  obedient  servants'?  So  they  withdrew  their 
land-forces  behind  the  Isthmus  of  Corinth,  which  they 
proceeded  to  fortify;  while  the  combined  fleet  was  in- 


153 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


duced,  by  the  entreaties  of  the  Athenians,  to  anchor  cff 
the  island  of  Salamis,  to  which  most  of  the  latter  pro¬ 
ceeded  to  transfer  for  safety  their  families  and  goods. 

The  Greeks  had  received  reinforcements  which 
made  their  fleet  larger  now  than  when  it  had  fought 
at  Artemisium.  The  Athenians  now  furnished  one 
hundred  and  eighty  of  the  three  hundred  and  seventy- 
eight  galleys.  The  I  ersian  army  entered  Athens  only  to 
find  an  empty  city — none  had  remained  in  it  but  some 
of  the  very  poorest,  or  a  few  obstinate  heads  who  saw 
in  the  palisade  of  the  citadel  the  “  wooden  walls”  of  the 
oracle,  and  strengthened  it  with  planks  accordingly. 
The  Persians  encamped  on  the  Areopagus  (the  Mars’ 
Kill  of  St  Paul),  and  shot  lighted  arrows  at  the  barri¬ 
cade,  which  was  soon  in  flames.  Put  their  storming- 
parties  were  foiled  by  a  gallant  defence,  until  a  few 
soldiers  scaled  a  place  where  no  watch  was  kept,  and 
were  followed  by  others,  who  put  the  weak  garrison  to 
the  sword.  The  temple  of  the  goddess  was  plundered 
and  burnt,  and  Xerxes  sent  a  messenger  home  to  Susa 
to  announce  that  his  vengeance  was  complete. 

The  sacrifice  of  Athens  was  unavoidable,  yet  it 
greatly  affected  the.  allies,  who  thought  of  withdrawing 
their  fleet  to  the  isthmus.  But  the  Athenians  felt 
that  this  step  would  almost  certainly  lead  to  its  break¬ 
ing  up.  There  was  a  long  war  of  words  between 
Themistocles,  Eurvbiades,  and  Adeimantus.  This 
last  was  insolent  to  the  Athenian.  “  You  have  no 
country  now,”  said  he,  and  therefore  no  vote.”  The¬ 
mistocles  replied,  that  with  two  hundred  well-manned 
ships  the  Athenians  would  find  a  country  wherever 
they  chose  to  land.  At  last  the  threat  that  the 
Athenians  would  all  emigrate  to  Italy,  and  give  up 


LA  MIS. 


159 


the  war,  prevailed.  And  preparations  were  made  foi 
battle. 

Tlie  time  was  naturally  one  which  abounded  with 
portents  and  prodigies,  which  were  generally  inter¬ 
preted  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  enemy.  It  was  the 
time  of  the  year  of  the  great  procession  in  honour 
of  Ceres  and  Bacchus  from  Eleusis  to  Athens.  It 
could  not  be  held  how,  in  the  presence  of  the  enemy, 
but  a  chant  was  heard  in  the  air,  as  from  no  mortal 
choir,  and  a  column  of  dust  was  seen  to  rise,  and  spread 
into  a  heavy  cloud  which  overshadowed  the  Persian 
armament.  Some  enthusiasts  averred  that  they  saw 
the  heroes  Ajax,  Teucer,  and  Achilles,  battling  for  their 
homesteads  in  Salamis  and  AEgina.  Their  images,  at 
all  events,  were  brought  out  to  battle,  for  good-luck. 
The  Spanish  Carlists,  when  they  appointed  the  image  of 
Nostra  Senorade  los  Dolores  generalissimo  of  theirforces, 
went  a  step  further;  and  this  was  in  our  remembrance. 

The  Persian  fleet  had  already  lost  six  hundred  and 
fifty  ships,  but  Herodotus  says  that  it  had  been  rein¬ 
forced  to  the  original  number  by  the  contingents  from 
the  islands  and  some  maritime  states — an  assertion 
which  seems  hardly  probable.  At  Phalerum,  the  har¬ 
bour  of  Athens,  a  council  of  war  was  held.  The  best 
head  in  the  fleet  of  Xerxes  was  a  woman’s — Artemisia, 
queen  of  Halicarnassus.  This  Amazon  of  the  sea 
seemed  almost  a  match  for  that  goddess  of  War  and 
Wisdom  whom  the  Athenians  worshipped.  She  al¬ 
ways  appears  a  special  favourite  with  her  townsman 
Herodotus,  who  nevertheless  is  said  to  have  found  the 
tyranny  of  her  family  unendurable.  She  advised 
Xerxes  to  bide  his  time,  and  let  the  Greek  confederacy 
fall  to  pieces  from  internal  dissensions.  But  the 


160 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


party  of  action  prevailed  ;  the  land-forces  marched  on 
the  isthmus,  where  Cleombrotus,  brother  of  Leonidas, 
now  commanded,  and  the  fleet  weighed  anchor. 

The  Sparfans  and  other  Greeks  within  the  Peninsula 
had  meanwhile  been  working  night  and  day,  throw¬ 
ing  up  a  wall  of  defence  across  the  isthmus.  Their 
panic  communicated  itself  to  the  fleet,  so  that  Themis- 
tocles  was  obliged  at  last  to  resort  to  a  desperate  strata¬ 
gem.  He  sent  to  the  Persian  commanders  secretly,  to 
tell  them  that  he  was  a  well-wisher  of  the  king’s,  and 
that  the  Greeks  meditated  flight.  The  Persians  believed 
it,  and  made  such  arrangements  of  their  forces,  under 
cover  of  the  night,  as  would  effectually  prevent  the 
escape  of  their  enemies.  The  Greek  council  of  captains 
was  still  in  fierce  debate  when  the  Athenian  Aristides 
arrived  from  iEgina,  where  he  was  undergoing  ostracism 
(he  was  said  to  have  been  banished  because  the  people 
were  tired  of  hearing  him  called  “  the  Just  ”),  and  said 
that  he  had  just  succeeded  in  getting  through  the  enemy, 
who  had  completely  surrounded  the  Greeks.  All  now 
made  up  their  minds  for  the  inevitable  fight,  and 
the  commanders  addressed  the  crews — Tliemistocles, 
with  the  most  powerful  eloquence.  But  the  enemy 
attacked  so  fiercely  that  the  Greeks  hacked  water,  til  1 
Ameinias  the  Athenian,  whose  blood  was  hotter  than 
that  of  the  rest,  darted  forward  and  engaged  an  enemy’s 
ship  The  two  became  entangled,  and  others  coming 
ip  to  their  aid,  the  conflict  became  general.  The  Pei  - 
dans  themselves  fought  better  than  at  Artemisinin, 
although  they  became  involved  in  the  same  inextri¬ 
cable  confusion,  while  the  Greeks  never  allowed  their 
line  to  be  broken.  The  very  circumstance  that  tho 
Persians  were  under  the  eye  of  their  king,  who  over 


SAL  AM  IS. 


1G1 


looked  the  battle  from  a  neighbouring  promontory,  told 
in  one  respect  against  them,  since  it  caused  those  in  the 
rear  to  press  to  the  front,  and  thus  get  involved  with 
their  own  retreating  ships ;  so  that  a  tangled  ball  of  hulls, 
oars,  and  rigging,  was  formed,  which  the  freely-moving 
Greeks  could  strike  at  and  tear  to  pieces  at  their  leisure. 

The  vanquished  showed  in  some  instances  great  gal¬ 
lantry.  The  liege  lady  of  Herodotus,  Queen  Artemisia, 
distinguished  herself  as  much  in  the  fight  as  in  the 
council,  but  in  a  way  of  questionable  morality.  Being 
hard  pressed  by  an  Athenian  galley,  she  turned  on  one 
belonging  to  her  own  allies,  and  sank  it.  The  Athenian 
thought  he  must  have  made  a  mistake,  and  sheered  off, 
while  the  unsuspecting  Xerxes  admired  the  good  service 
his  fair  ally  seemed  to  be  doing.  “  My  men,”  said  he, 
“fight  like  women,  and  my  women  like  men.”  Such 
cool  effrontery  would  have  been  unintelligible  to  a 
Persian.  There  was  a  petty  king  on  board  the  galley 
which  she  had  sunk ;  but  drowned  men  tell  no  tales. 

A  brother  of  the  king,  Ariabignes,  the  admiral, 
perished,  and  a  vast  number  of  noble  Persians.  The 
Greeks  whose  ships  were  sunk  mostly  saved  themselves 
by  swimming,  while  the  Persians  lost  more  drowned 
than  killed  in  action.  The  fugitives  tried  to  reach 
Phalerum,  but  there  were  iEginetans  outside,  who 
swooped  on  them  like  falcons.  The  stage-coward  of  the 
battles  of  Artemisium  and  Salanris  is  the  unfortunate 
Adeimantus,  who  is  accused  of  attempted  flight.  Why 
was  Herodotus,  usually  so  impartial,  so  spiteful  against 
him  and  the  Corinthians?  He  may  have  relied  on 
Athenian  information,  or  perhaps  some  general  im¬ 
pression  of  Greek  half-hearted  ness  must  have  come 
from  Iialicarnassian  or  Ionian  sources.  H£schylus, 

a.  c.  voL  iii.  L 


162 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


in  his  magnificent  tragedy  of  “  The  Persians,”  beside 
which  the  prose  of  Herodotus  is  tame,  speaks  of 
nothing  but  patriotic  zeal,  singing  of  paeans,  and 
joyous  alacrity.  The  hero  of  Waterloo  is  said  to 
have  modestly  observed  to  some  ladies  who  compli¬ 
mented  him  on  a  description  of  the  battle,  “  I  ought 
to  know  all  about  it,  for  I  was  there  myself.”  So 
HCsohylus  ought  to  be  our  best  authority  for  the  battle 
of  Salamis,  as  he  was  present  himself,  probably  in  the 
ship  of  his  brother  Ameinias.  According  to  him,  it  was 
the  Persians  who  were  caught  in  a  trap  by  Themis- 
tocles  :  thinking  the  Greeks  were  in  retreat,  they  had 
made  their  arrangements  for  chase  and  not  for  action, 
which  rendered  their  discomfiture  more  easy;  since 
not  only  did  those  who  came  up  break  their  fighting 
order,  but,  as  at  Artemisium,  they  had  detached  a  con¬ 
siderable  squadron  to  block  the  entrance  to  the  strait. 
The  poet  describes  the  chase  as  lasting  till  midnight,  in 
the  open  sea,  the  Greeks  destroying  the  helpless  enemy 
“like  fishermen  harpooning  in  a  shoal  of  tunny-fish.” 
All  the  shore  of  Attica  was  strewn  with  wrecks. 

“  Slow  sinks,  more  lovely  ere  his  race  be  run, 

Behind  Morea’s  hills  the  setting  sun  ; 

Not  as  in  northern  climes,  obscurely  bright, 

But  one  unclouded  blaze  of  living  light ! 

O’er  the  hushed  deep  the  yellow  beam  he  throws, 
Gilds  the  green  wave,  that  trembles  as  it  glows. 

On  old  Angina’s  rock,  and  Hydra’s  isle, 

The  god  of  gladness  sheds  his  parting  smile  ; 

O’er  his  own  regions  lingering,  loves  to  shine, 

Though  there  his  altars  are  no  more  divine. 
Descending  fast,  the  mountain-shadows  kiss 
Thy  glorious  gulf,  unconquered  Salamis  !”* 

*  Byron — “  The  Corsair.” 


SAL  A  MIS. 


163 


But  never  did  the  sun  of  Greece  set  on  a  scene  su 
memorable,  and  so  beautiful  in  one  sense,  in  the 
midst  of  its  terror,  as  on  that  autumn  evening  in  the 
year  480  b.c.  There  was  yet  more  to  be  done,  but 
Greece  and  civilisation  were  safe. 

The  destruction  of  the  grand  fleet  necessitated  the 
retreat  of  the  heterogeneous  multitude  which  called 
itself  the  grand  army,  for  it  depended  on  the  fleet  for 
most  of  its  supplies.  But  it  was  hoped  that  a  picked 
force  might  still  succeed,  and  Xerxes  left  behind 
300,000  troops  under  the  command  of  Mardonius, 
who  went  into  winter  quarters  in  Thessaly,  when  he 
started  homewards  with  all  possible  speed.  This 
flight  may  have  had  State  reasons  for  it,  like  that  of 
Xapoleon  from  Russia,  for  the  outlying  provinces  were 
always  ready  for  insurrection ;  but,  considering  his 
character,  the  simple  interpretation  of  his  conduct 
appears  the  most  probable,  that  he  was  thoroughly 
cowed.  Themistocles  wished  to  follow  up  the  victory 
by  hunting  the  fugitives  from  island  to  island,  and 
then  destroying  the  bridge  of  boats  over  the  Helle¬ 
spont.  When  he  was  overruled  by  Eurybiades,  he 
gave  out  that  he  had  changed  his  mind,  and  sent  a 
faithful  slave  to  find  Xerxes,  and  tell  him  that,  out 
of  personal  goodwill  to  his  majesty,  Themistocles  had 
prevented  the  Greeks  from  destroying  the  bridge. 

An  unusually  early  winter,  as  in  the  Russian  cam¬ 
paign  of  1812,  added  to  the  sufferings  of  the  retreat. 
According  to  the  tragedian  iEschylus,  great  numbers 
perished  in  attempting  to  cross  the  frozen  Strymon, 
thus  forestalling  the  Beresina  disaster.  The  Helle¬ 
spont  bridge  had  been  broken  up,  not  by  the  Greeks 
but  by  a  storm;  but  there  was  no  difficulty  in 


164 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


ferrying  across  the  miserable  remnant  in  boats.  At 
Abydos  they  came  on  supplies,  and  many  who  had 
survived  starvation  on  grass  and  tree-bark  died  of  sur¬ 
feit.  One  version  of  the  account  makes  Xerxes  leave 
his  army  on  the  Strymon,  and  take  ship  himself  for 
Asia.  A  storm  coming  on,  the  ship  was  in  such 
danger  that  the  pilot  declared  that  there  was  no 
chance  of  safety  unless  some  of  those  on  board  would 
sacrifice  themselves  to  lighten  it,  and  appealed  to  the 
loyalty  of  the  Persians,  who  accordingly  leapt  over¬ 
board.  It  is  added  that,  on  coming  safely  to  land, 
the  king  presented  the  pilot  with  a  golden  crown  for 
saving  his  own  life,  and  then  had  him  beheaded  for  caus¬ 
ing  the  death  of  so  many  of  his  gallant  servants.  The 
latter  part  looks  like  the  repetition  of  an  anecdote  of 
Cambyses  ;  and  indeed  Herodotus  scarcely  believes 
the  story,  as  he  observes  that  the  Persians  might  hav8 
been  sent  below,  and  the  Phoenician  crew  sacrificed. 
It  did  not  seem  to  strike  him  that  sailors  are  of  more 
use  in  a  storm  than  the  best  soldiers,  and  the  self¬ 
devoting  loyalty  of  the  Persians  to  their  monarch’s 
person  is  well  known. 

The  Greeks  passed  an  anxious  winter,  for  Mardonius 
remained  in  Thessaly,  making  his  preparations  for 
action  in  the  spring.  Their  allied  fleet,  a  hundred 
and  ten  strong,  was  persuaded  to  come  as  far  as  Delos 
by  an  embassy  from  Asia  (one  of  whom  was  an 
Herodotus,  possibly  a  relative  of  our  author),  who  re¬ 
presented  that  the  Greek  colonies  there  were  ripe  for 
revolt.  They  were,  however,  deterred  for  the  present 
from  proceeding  farther ;  possibly  because  a  Lacedae¬ 
monian,  naturally  a  landsman,  was  first  in  command. 
Mardonius  in  the  mean  time  spent  the  winter  in  con- 


SA  LAM  IS. 


165 


suiting  oracles,  tlie  answers  of  wliieli  do  not  seem  to 
have  been  particularly  encouraging,  as  he  afterwards 
resorted  to  the  more  statesmanlike  measure  of  endeav¬ 
ouring  to  detach  the  Athenians  from  the  Greek  alli¬ 
ance.  For  this  mission  he  selected  Alexander,  the  son 
of  Amyntas,  prince  of  Macedon.  The  Spartans,  hear¬ 
ing  of  it,  sent  ambassadors  on  their  part  to  beseech 
them  not  to  desert  the  cause  of  Greece.  The  Athe¬ 
nians,  with  something  of  a  lofty  contempt,  bade  them 
have  no  fear,  and  told  Alexander  that  they  would 
carry  on  the  war  with  the  destroyers  of  their  city  and 
temples  “  so  long  as  the  sun  held  its  course  in  heaven” 
— and  warned  him,  as  he  valued  his  safety,  never  again 
to  bring  them  a  like  proposal.  They  were  terribly  in 
earnest ; .  for  when  one  Lycidas,  a  fellow-townsman, 
counselled  submission  on  another  occasion,  they  stoned 
him  to  death. 


CHAPTER  XII. 


PLATiEA  AND  MYCALE. 


u  A  day  of  onsets  of  despair  ! 

Dashed  on  every  rocky  square, 

Their  surging  charges  foamed  themselves  away. 

Last  the  Prussian  trumpet  blew ; 

Through  the  long-tormented  air 
Heaven  flashed  a  sudden  jubilant  ray, 

And  down  we  swept,  and  charged,  and  overthrew.” 

— Tennyson  :  “  Ode  on  the  Death 
of  the  Duke  of  Wellington.” 

TrtE  concluding  act  of  the  great  historical  drama  opens 
with  the  spring  of  b.c.  479.  Mardonius  has  come 
south  from  Thessaly,  and  is  gleaning  in  Athens  what¬ 
ever  the  spoiler,  Xerxes,  had  left.  The  Athenians  are 
again  in  their  island-asylum  of  Salamis.  The  Spartans 
are  marching  on  the  Isthmus  of  Corinth,  under  the 
command  of  Pausanias,  who  had  succeeded  his  father 
Cleombrotus  in  the  regency  and  the  guardiansnip 
of  the  young  son  of  Leonidas,  who  did  not  live  to 
reign.  After  a  demonstration  towards  Megara, 
where  he  hoped  to  cut  off  the  advanced  -  guard 
of  the  allies,  Mardonius  proceeded  into  the  Theban 
territory,  where  he  constructed  a  vast  fortified  camp 
on  the  bank  of  the  river  Asopus.  A  general  ad- 


PL AT. E A  AND  MYCALE. 


1G7 


vance  was  now  made  by  the  Peloponnesians  from 
the  isthmus  to  Eleusis,  where  they  were  joined  by  the 
Athenian  contingent  from  Salamis.  When  they  had 
ascertained  where  the  Persians  were,  they  set  them¬ 
selves  in  array  along  the  highlands  of  Cithaeron.  As 
they  seemed  indisposed  to  come  down  into  the  plain, 
Mardonius  sent  his  cavalry  to  feel  their  position,  under 
the  command  of  Masistius. 

This  Murat  of  the  Persian  army  was  a  hand¬ 
some  giant,  who  rode  a  white  Msasan  charger,  whose 
accoutrements,  as  well  as  those  of  his  rider,  glit¬ 
tered  with  gold.  So  rode  Charles  of  Burgundy  at 
Granson  or  at  Morat.  In  the  present  day  such  cos¬ 
tume  is  scarcely  to  be  seen  further  west  than  India, 
and  some  tall  Rajah,  full  dressed  for  the  Governor- 
General’s  durbar,  would  give  a  good  idea  of  liow  Ma¬ 
sistius  looked  at  the  head  of  his  cuirassiers.  These 
galloped  up  to  the  Greek  infantry  in  troops,  hurling 
their  javelins,  and  calling  them  “  women  ”  because  they 
did  not  come  on.  The  Megarians  were  in  the  most 
exposed  place.  Being  hard  pressed,  they  sent  to 
Pausanias  for  succour.  When  he  called  for  volunteers, 
the  Athenians  promptly  offered,  and  three  hundred 
picked  men,  supported  by  archers,  moved  up.  The 
charges  continued  without  cessation,  Masistius  leading 
with  the  utmost  gallantry,  and  presenting  a  conspicu¬ 
ous  mark  to  the  bowmen.  At  last  an  arrow  pierced 
the  side  of  his  charger.  He  reared  back  from  the 
agony  of  the  wound,  and  threw  his  rider,  who  now 
lay  at  the  mercy  of  his  enemies,  stunned  by  his 
fall,  and,  like  the  knights  of  the  middle  ages,  help¬ 
less  from  the  weight  of  his  panoply.  His  vest 
of  Tyrian  crimson  was  pierced  with  spear-points,  but 


168 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


still  he  lived,  for  under  it  he  wore  a  shirt  of  golden 
mail.  At  last  a  hand  more  dexterous  than  the  rest 
pierced  his  brain  through  one  of  the  eye-holes  of  his 
visor,  for  he  was  too  proud  to  ask  for  quarter.  Amongst 
his  own  followers,  as  they  charged  and  wheeled  about, 
no  one  knew  that  he  was  dead,  and  they  might  even 
have  ridden  over  the  body  of  their  unconscious  com¬ 
mander,  as  the  Prussian  cavalry  did  over  Blucher  when 
he  lay  under  his  dead  horse  at  Ligny.  But  when  they 
retired  lie  was  immediately  missed,  for  there  was  no 
one  to  give  the  word  of  command.  All  that  they  could 
now  do  for  him  was  to  recover  his  body,  and  with  this 
object  the  squadrons  united  and  made  a  combined  onset. 
To  meet  this,  the  Athenians  called  up  other  Greek 
troops  to  their  assistance.  While  they  were  coming, 
a  fierce  struggle  took  place  for  the  body,  which  the 
Athenians  were  obliged  to  leave  till  their  reinforcements 
joined  them.  But  as  it  could  not  be  easily  removed 
by  cavalry,  it  ultimately  remained  in  possession  of 
the  Greeks.  Many  Persian  knights  shared  the  fate  of 
their  commander,  so  that  the  rest  of  the  troopers  were 
obliged  to  ride  back  to  Mardonius  with  the  news  of 
their  misfortune.  The  death  of  Masistius  was  con¬ 
sidered  such  a  blow  that  it  was  bewailed  by  the  whole 
army,  corps  after  corps  taking  up  the  dole  of  theii 
Adonis,  till  it  resounded  through  all  Boeotia,  and  horses 
and  men  were  ordered  to  be  shorn  and  shaven  as  a 
sign  of  public  mourning;  for  Masistius,  next  to  Mardo¬ 
nius,  was  considered  the  greatest  man  in  the  army.  Tc 
the  Greeks  his  fall  was  a  matter  of  equal  rejoicing,  and 
the  handsome  corpse  was  carried  along  the  lines  to 
raise  the  spirits  of  the  soldiers.  Their  fear  of  cavalry 
was  now  wearing  off,  and  a  general  forward  movement 


PLATjEA  and  MYCALE.  1G9* 

was  made  towards  the  plain  of  Plataea,  where  water 
was  more  abundant.  They  took  up  a  new  posi¬ 
tion  near  the  Gargaphian  Fountain  (the  modern  Yer* 
gantiani).  Here  a  hot  debate  arose  between  the 
Tegeans  and  Athenians,  each  demanding  the  honour 
of  occupying  the  left  wing  (the  Spartans  always  claimed 
the  right),  which  was  decided,  chiefly  on  mythological 
grounds,  in  favour  of  the  Athenians.  The  army  was 
thus  marshalled  :  on  the  right  were  five  thousand 
heavy-armed  Spartans,  with  thirty-five  thousand  light- 
armed  Helots,  and  of  other  Laconians  five  thousand ; 
then  the  Tegeans,  then  the  other  Greek  contingents,  till 
on  the  extreme  left  six  hundred  Plataeans  stood  by  the 
side  of  eight  thousand  Athenians  under  Aristides.  The 
decision  of  Greek  battles  mainly  rested  on  the  heavy¬ 
armed  infantry.  Each  man  of  these  was  generally  at¬ 
tended  by  his  military  servant,  and  looked  upon  himself 
as  an  officer  and  a  gentleman.  The  Athenian  contin¬ 
gent  probably  represented  all  who  were  not  engaged  on 
board  the  fleet.  The  remnant  of  the  Thespians — whose 
city  as  well  as  Plataea  had  been  sacked — eighteen  hun¬ 
dred  in  number,  were  also  there,  but  now  too  much 
impoverished  to  serve  as  heavy-armed.  The  sum  total 
of  the  army  was  one  hundred  and  ten  thousand  men, 
being  less  than  one  to  three  to  the  army  of  the  king. 

Mardonius  honoured  the  Spartans  by  confronting 
them  Avith  his  best  troops,  the  Persians  ;  he  posted 
his  Medes,  Bactrians,  Indians,  and  Sacae  opposite  the 
other  Greeks,  and  threatened  the  Athenians  with  liis 
Greek  and  Macedonian  allies.  Besides  his  three  hun¬ 
dred  thousand,  he  had  a  number  of  small  contingents, 
such  as  marines  from  the  fleet,  and  perhaps  fifty  thou¬ 
sand  Greek  auxiliaries.  It  was  not  the  custom  for 


1 70 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


any  army  to  engage  until  tlie  omens  liad  been  pro¬ 
nounced  favourable  ;  and  the  soothsayers  on  both  sides 
constantly  reported  that  they  were  favourable  for  de¬ 
fence,  but  not  for  attack.  After  the  two  armies  had 
thus  watched  each  other  for  eight  days,  Mardonius  was 
advised  to  occupy  the  passes  of  Cithaeron,  as  the  Greeks 
were  constantly  being  reinforced  from  that  quarter,  and 
accordingly  despatched  cavalry  to  a  pass  leading  to 
Plataea,  called  “Three  Heads”  by  the  Boeotians,  and 
“Oakheads”  by  the  Athenians  (the  Greek  words 
sounding  much  the  same).  This  foray  resulted  in 
destroying  a  military  train  of  five  hundred  sumpter 
animals,  which  was  making  its  way  to  the  Greek  army. 
The  two  next  days  were  passed  in  demonstrations  of 
cavalry  up  to  the  Asopus,  which  ran  between  the 
armies,  the  Theban  horse  showing  great  alacrity  in 
annoying  their  Hellenic  brethren,  but  leaving  the  serious 
fighting  to  the  Persians.  On  the  eleventh  day  Mar¬ 
donius,  tired  of  inaction,  held  a  council  of  war,  the 
result  of  which  was  that  he  ordered  an  attack  on  the 
next  day,  in  spite  of  the  still  unfavourable  auspices. 

In  the  dead  of  night,  as  the  armies  lay  in  position, 
the  Athenian  sentries  were  accosted  by  a  solitary  horse¬ 
man  who  asked  to  speak  to  their  commanders.  When 
they  came  to  the  front,  he  told  them  that  the  omens 
had  till  now  restrained  Mardonius,  but  that  yesterday 
he  had  “bid  the  omens  farewell,”  and  intended  to 
fight  on  the  morrow.  He  added,  that  he  hoped  that 
his  present  service  would  not  be  forgotten  ;  he  was  of 
Greek  origin,  and  a  secret  friend  of  the  Greeks : 
his  name  was  Alexander,  the  son  of  Amvntas  of 
Macedonia.  As  soon  as  the  message  had  been  reported 
to  Pausanias,  he,  with  a  scarcely  Spartan  spirit, 


PL  A  TJEA  AND  M  YC ALE 


171 


wished  the  Athenians  to  change  places  with  him, 
as,  from  their  experience  at  Marathon,  they  knew 
the  Persian  manner  of  lighting  "better.  And  this  man¬ 
oeuvre,  dangerous  as  it  was  to  attempt  in  the  face  of 
the  enemy,  would  have  "been  executed,  had  not  Mar- 
donius  discovered  it,  and  made  a  corresponding  dispo¬ 
sition  of  his  own  army.  He  then  sent  a  herald  to 
reproach  the  Spartans,  and  challenge  them  to  light  man 
for  man,  with  or  without  the  rest  of  the  combatants,  as 
they  pleased.  As  no  answer  was  given,  his  cavalry 
were  launched  en  masse  against  the  Greek  army.  The 
mounted  archers  caused  them  great  annoyance,  and  de¬ 
stroyed  the  Gargaphian  well,  from  which  their  water 
supply  was  drawn.  The  supplies  from  the  rear  having 
"been  cut  off,  the  Greeks  determined  on  a  westward 
movement  towards  the  city  of  Platsea,  where  they  would 
be  within  reach  of  water.  Half  the  army  were  to 
carry  out  this  movement  in  the  night,  while  the  other 
half  were  to  fall  back  on  Cithaeron,  to  protect  their 
line  of  communication  with  their  base  behind  the 
isthmus.  The  first  division  had  suffered  so  much  dur¬ 
ing  the  day,  that  in  their  joy  at  the  respite  they  retired 
too  far,  and  never  halted  till  they  reached  the  pre¬ 
cincts  of  a  temple  of  Juno,  close  to  Plataea  itself. 
Pausanias  himself  was  following,  but  he  was  kept 
back  by  the  insubordination  of  a  sturdy  colonel 
named  Amompharetus,  who  objected  to  any  strategic 
movements  which  looked  like  running  away.  At 
length  he  was '  left  to  follow  or  not,  as  he  pleased, 
while  the  rest  of  the  Spartans  defiled  along  the  safe 
and  hilly  ground,  the  Athenians  striking  across  the 
exposed  plain.  Mardonius  had  now  some  reason  to 
despise  his  enemy,  and  he  ordered  all  his  cavalry  to 


172 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERObOTUS. 


charge,  and  the  infantry  to  advance  at  quick  march, 
crossing  the  Asopus.  The  Athenians  were  hidden 
from  him  by  a  series  of  knolls,  but  he  pressed  hard 
on  the  steps  of  the  Lacedaemonians  and  Tegeans. 
Fortune  sometimes  favours  the  timid  as  well  as  the 
brave.  Seeing  Mardonius  apparently  pursuing  the 
enemy,  the  rest  of  his  army  at  once  broke  their  ranks 
and  followed  in  disorder,  each  man  eager  to  be  in  at 
the  death  of  the  quarry  which  his  commander  was 
hunting  down.  Pausanias  had  already  sent  a  mounted 
orderly  to  the  Athenians  to  beg  that  they  would  come 
to  his  assistance,  or  at  least  send  their  archers,  as  he 
was  sorely  vexed  by  the  cavalry.  They  could  not 
comply,  as  they  wanted  all  their  strength  to  repulse 
a  general  attack  which  was  just  then  being  made  on 
them  by  the  king’s  Greeks.  Pausanias  halted  his 
line ;  but  still  the  sacrifices  were  unpropitious.  From 
behind  the  Persian  breastwork  of  shields  came  a  rain 
of  arrows,  and  the  breastwork  itself  seemed  impreg¬ 
nable.  The  Lacedaemonians  and  Tegeans  were  falling 
fast.  At  last  Pausanias  espied  at  no  great  distance  the 
temple  of  Juno,  and  offered  up  a  prayer  to  the  god¬ 
dess.  The  omens  at  once  changed,  as  by  magic.  The 
Tegeans  dashed  at  the  enemy’s  fence  of  shields.  The 
Spartans  followed,  and  the  battle  was  won.  The  Per¬ 
sians  fought  like  bull-dogs,  singly  or  in  knots,  though 
their  long  dress,  says  the  chronicler,  was  terribly 
in  the  way.  They  wrenched  away  or  snapt  asunder 
the  long  Greek  lances,  and  made  play  with  their 
hangers.  Mardonius,  conspicuous  on  a  white  horse, 
like  Ney  at  "Waterloo,  was  the  “  bravest  of  the  brave.” 
But  at  last  a  cry  rose  that  Mardonius  was  down,  and 
at  that  cry  the  Persians  wavered,  and  fled  in  wild 


PLAICE  A  AND  MY  VALE. 


173 


disorder  to  the  great  stockade  which  had  been  built 
to  protect  their  camp.  But  Artabazus,  who  had  now 
come  up,  had  kept  his  forty  thousand  men  in  hand 
when  he  saw  the  scramble  of  the  attack ;  and  when 
he  saw  the  repulse,  he  made  no  attempt  to  save  the 
day,  but  faced  about  and  at  once  began  an  orderly 
retreat  on  the  Hellespont.  Some  of  the  Greeks  who 
had  joined  the  Persian  king  fought  desperately  in 
their  miserable  cause.  Three  hundred  noble  Thebans 
are  said  to  have  fallen  in  the  front  of  the  battle. 
This  may  have  been  the  “  Sacred  Band  ”  which  fought 
under  Epaminondas  in  later  history,  and  which  con¬ 
sisted  of  friends  sworn  to  live  and  die  together.  These 
Thebans  fought  indeed  “with  halters  round  their 
necks  :  ”  for  after  the  victory,  Pausanias  insisted  on 
the  surrender  of  the  chiefs  of  the  late  movement, 
and  executed  them  all.  When  the  Greeks  who  had 
made  the  mistake  of  retreating  too  far  turned  back 
in  disorder  to  get  their  share  of  the  glory,  poetical 
justice  overtook  them  in  the  shape  of  a  charge  of 
the  Persian  and  Theban  cavalry,  which  stung  them 
with  the  energy  of  a  doomed  swarm  of  wasps.  They 
lost  six  hundred  men,  and  were  scattered  to  the  heights 
of  Citliaeron.  All  wras  not  yet  over.  A  new  battle 
began  at  the  Persian  camp,  which  vigorously  repelled 
the  onslaughts  of  the  Spartans  and  their  allies.  It 
was  not  till  the  Athenians  came  up  (who  understood 
“  wall-fighting,”  says  Herodotus)  that  the  day  could  be 
6poken  of  as  finally  decided.  They  managed  to  break 
or  upset  the  “  abattis,”  and  the  Tegeans  again  led 
the  forlorn  hope  through  it  or  over  it.  Then  began 
the  slaughter.  Only  three  thousand  were  left  alive 
of  the  whole  Persian  army.  This  seems  incredible, 


174 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


especially  in  connection  with  the  small  number  of  tho 
allies  who  fell  in  the  action,  as  given  by  Herodotus. 
But  the  vanquished  were  possibly  impounded  in  their 
fortified  camp,  like  the  wretched  Mamelukes  whom 
Mehemet  Ali  destroyed  in  the  court  of  a  fortress. 

The  plunder  was  immense.  The  tent  of  Mardonius, 
with  all  the  royal  plate  which  the  king  had  left  him. 
his  manger  of  bronze,  gold  and  silver  in  all  shapes, 
splendidly  inlaid  arms,  vestments,  horses,  camels,  beau¬ 
tiful  women,  became  the  dangerous  prize  of  the  needy 
Peloponnesians,  who,  to  avert  Nemesis,  offered  a  tithe- 
of  all  to  the  gods.  Pausanias  buried  with  due  hon¬ 
ours  the  body  of  the  brave  Mardonius,  though  he  was 
strongly  urged  by  an  iEginetan  of  high  rank  to  remem¬ 
ber  how  that  of  Leonidas  had  been  treated  by  Xerxes. 
“  Would  you  have  me  humble  my  country  in  the  dust, 
now  that  I  have  just  raised  her  1”  was  the  Spartan’s 
answer.  And  he  bid  the  proposer  be  thankful  that  he 
answered  hiir  only  in  words. 

It  seems  to  have  been  the  invidious  custom  in 
all  Greek  battles  to  assign  to  one  or  two  men  the 
prize  of  valour,  and  our  author  always  gives  their 
names.  The  bravest  of  all  was  adjudged  to  be  the 
Spartan  Aristodemus,  sole  survivor  of  the  glorious 
three  hundred  of  Thermopylae.  He  could  not  bear 
his  life,  and  now  lost  it  purposely  ;  therefore  he  was 
refused  the  usual  honours.  Sophanes  was  proclaimed 
the  bravest  of  the  Athenians  :  he  was  in  fact  so 
brave  that  (perhaps  adopting  an  idea  from  his  expe¬ 
rience  afloat)  he  wore  an  anchor  and  chain,  by  which 
he  moored  himself  to  his  post  in  action.*  It  is 

*  So  the  wounded  at  the  battle  of  Clontarf,  in  Ireland, 
said  to  have  got  themselves  tied  to  stakes. 


PLATTE  A  AND  MYCALE. 


l75 


a  pity  to  lose  our  faith  in  so  quaint  an  expedient ; 
but  there  was  another  version  of  the  story,  says  our 
honest  chronicler,  that  he  bore  an  anchor  as  the  device 
on  his  shield.  The  prudent  Artabazus  reached  Byzan¬ 
tium  safely,  though  he  was  roughly  handled  on  the  road 
by  the  Thracians  and  Macedonians,  the  latter  of  whom 
had  been  from  the  first  favourable  to  the  Greeks. 

This  “crowning  mercy”  of  Plataea,  as  Cromwell 
would  have  called  it,  was  supplemented  by  a  brilliant 
action  which  took  place  on  the  same  day  at  Mycale,  on 
the  coast  of  Ionia. 

When  the  season  for  navigation  had  come,  the  Greek 
fleet  under  Leotychides,  which  had  remained  at  Delos, 
pushed  across  to  Samos,  but  the  prey  they  had  ex¬ 
pected  to  find  there  had  flown.  The  Persian  fleet  had 
placed  itself  under  the  protection  of  a  land  force  of 
sixty  thousand  men  under  Tigranes,  appointed  by 
Xerxes  governor  of  Ionia,  and  was  drawn  up  on  shore 
at  Mycalk,  protected  by  a  rampart  and  palisade.  The 
Greeks  came  provided  with  gangway  boards,  and  all 
other  appliances  for  naval  action.  But  the  Persians 
were  morally  sea-sick,  therefore  Leotychides  disem¬ 
barked.  his  troops  at  his  leisure.  A  mysterious  rumour 
of  a  great  victory  in  Boeotia,  ascribed  to  some  divine 
messenger,  but  possibly  brought  as  a  telegram  by  tire- 
signals,  put  the  Greeks  in  heart.  Tt  was  afternoon, 
and  the  field  of  Plataea  had  been  fought  in  the  morning. 
The  Athenians  were  already  engaged,  when  the  Lacedae¬ 
monians  came  up,  having  to  make  a  circuit  by  a  rugged 
way  intersected  with  ravines.  As  at  Plataea,  the  Per¬ 
sians  fought  well  as  long  as  their  rampart  of  bucklers 
stood  upright :  even  when  it  gave  way,  they  broke  up 
into  clusters,  which  fought  like  wild  boars  at  bay. 


176  THE  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 

The  onset  of  the  Athenians  was  the  more  furious  that 
they  feared  to  have  their  laurels  snatched  from  them 
by  their  friends.  They  drove  the  Persians  into  their 
camp,  and,  more  fortunate  than  their  brethren  at 
Plata3a,  entered  it  pell  -  mell  with  the  flying  enemy. 
The  barbarian  auxiliaries  fled  where  they  could,  but 
the  Persians  themselves  still  held  out  desperately, 
until  the  Lacedaemonians  came  up  and  completed  the 
defeat.  Tigranes  and  Mardontes  died  as  became  Per¬ 
sian  officers,  fighting  gallantly  to  the  last.  The  Mile¬ 
sians  in  the  Persian  service,  who  had  been  posted  to 
guard  the  passes  of  the  mountain,  turned  on  the 
fugitives  and  cut  them  up ;  for  revolt  became  general 
among  the  Ionian  Greeks  as  soon  as  the  battle  was 
over,  and  Samos,  Chios,  Lesbos,  and  other  islands, 
joined  the  confederacy  for  reprisals  against  Persia. 

The  Greek  fleet  now  sailed  to  the  Hellespont,  where 
they  found  the  bridge  of  boats  destroyed.  Then 
Leoty chides  went  home  with  his  Spartans,  but  the 
Athenians  stayed  and  besieged  Sestos,  which  held  out 
till  the  autumn,  when  it  was  taken  by  famine.  There 
had  been  a  serious  debate  whether  it  would  not  be 
better  to  remove  the  Ionian  colonists  altogether,  and 
settle  them  in  Greece,  than  leave  them  to  the  future 
tender  mercies  of  Persia.  Put  the  cpiestion  was  settled 
by  the  Athenians  taking  their  Asiatic  colonies  into 
dose  league  and  alliance. 

In  those  two  memorable  years,  which  end  the 
narrative  of  Herodotus,  Europe  had  established  its 
preponderance  over  Asia  for  ever.  The  last  tableau 
of  his  great  epic  drama  is  almost  lost  in  its  blaze 
of  glory,  and  it  is  time  that  the  curtain  should 
fall.  It  is  true  that  Herodotus  hardly  recoguises 


PLATJEA  AND  MYCALE. 


177 


tliis,  and  tries  to  amuse  his  readers  for  some  time 
longer  with  the  not  very  edifying  court-scandal  of 
Susa.  Xerxes  had  infinite  trouble  with  the  ladies 
of  his  court.  The  fierce  and  jealous  sultana  Ames- 
tris,  who  treated  her  rival  with  such  fiendish  cruelty, 
may  he  the  Vashti  of  the  Book  of  Esther,  as  Alias- 
uerus  is  supposed  to  be  the  Scriptural  form  of  hei 
husband’s  name.  Nemesis  was  fully  satisfied  when 
Xerxes  himself  fell  a  victim  to  a  palace  intrigue  ; 
hut  this  is  not  mentioned  by  Herodotus,  nor  that 
a  statue  of  that  dread  Power  was  placed  on  the  spot 
where  he  had  been  a  spectator  of  the  destruction  of 
his  fleet. 


a.  c.  vol.  iii. 


CHAPTER  Xin. 


CONCLUDING  REMARKS. 

It  lias  thus  been  attempted  to  give,  in  a  succinct 
form,  the  general  drift  and  character  of  the  great 
work  of  Herodotus.  In  the  original,  his  liquid  and 
pellucid  Ionian  dialect  constitutes  one  of  the  greatest 
charms  of  his  style.  In  simple  perspicuity  he  forms 
a  remarkable  contrast  to  the  terse  and  gnarled  Thucyd¬ 
ides,  who  propounds  so  many  puzzles  to  the  classical 
scholar.  But  no  ancient  author  is  so  profitable  to 
read  in  a  good  translation.  A  good  translation  is 
like  a  good  photograph,  giving  distinctive  traits,  and 
light  and  shade,  hut  no  life  or  colour.  Our  attempt 
is  a  coloured  sketch  on  a  small  scale,  and  not  a  photo¬ 
graph,  of  a  great  book. 

Herodotus  may  be  considered,  according  to  the  stan¬ 
dard  of  his  time,  as  a  decidedly  veracious  historian. 
And  his  veracity  is  of  the  kind  that  wears  well.  It  is 
impossible  to  refuse  to  credit  him  with  general  impar¬ 
tiality;  and  if  he  erred  at  all,  the  modern  reader  will 
readily  pardon  his  excessive  sympathy  with  the  Athe¬ 
nians.  Yet  he  does  full  justice  to  the  gallantry,  gener¬ 
osity,  and  other  high  qualities  of  the  Persians.  Ho 
was  born,  we  must  remember,  a  Persian  subject, — for 
Halica^iaasus  did  not  recover  its  independence  until 


COXCLUDING  REMARKS. 


17b 


he  had  grown  np  to  manhood — and  he  could  speak 
from  experience  of  the  masters  of  Ionia,  that  their  rule 
was,  on  the  whole,  just  and  equal.  His  own  town, 
indeed,  had  met  with  exceptional  kindness  from  her 
liege  lords.  Hence  he  has  none  of  the  usual  Greek 
•contempt  of  and  antipathy  to  “barbarians,”  or  peo¬ 
ple  speaking  an  unknown  tongue,  which  is  a  primd 
facie  reason  for  dislike  with  the  vulgar  of  all  nations. 
His  great  merit  is  that  of  Homer  and  Shakespeare,  a 
broad  catholicity  of  sentiment  in  observing  and  esti¬ 
mating  character.  He  has  the  strongest  sympathy  with 
heroism  whenever  displayed,  an  exquisite  feeling  for 
humorous  situations,  and,  as  naturally  connected  with 
humour,  intense  pathos  when  the  subject  admits  of  it. 
He  has  the  head  of  a  sage,  the  heart  of  a  mother,  and 
the  simple  apprehension  of  a  child.  And  if  his  style  is 
redundant  with  a  sort  of  Biblical  reiteration,  it  is  always 
clear  and  luminous.  There  can  never  be  any  mistake 
about  his  meaning,  as  long  as  no  corruption  has  crept 
into  his  text,  which,  when  it  happens,  is  the  fault  of 
his  transcribers,  and  not  his  own.  His  ethical  portraits 
are  above  all  invaluable,  and,  however  fabulous  the  cir¬ 
cumstances  with  which  they  are  connected,  must  have 
been  true  to  the  life,  from  their  evidently  undesigned 
consistency.  The  benignant  and  vain  Croesus,  the  am¬ 
bitious  Cyrus,  the  truculent  Cambyses,  the  chivalrous 
yet  calculating  Darius,  the  wild  Cleomenes,  the  wise 
and  wary  Themistocles,  the  frantic  Xerxes — the  very 
type  of  the  infatuation  by  which  the  divine  vengeance 
wrought — these,  and  a  host  of  other  portraits  of  living 
men,  can  only  be  compared  in  their  verisimilitude  with 
the  immortal  creations  of  Shakespeare. 

Hot  a  few  pleasant  anecdotes — mythical,  ethical, 


ISO  TUB  HISTORY  OF  HERODOTUS. 

social,  and  historical — as  well  as  nearly  all  the  minor 
*  affluents  of  the  .main  stream  of  narrative,  have  been 
passed  over  or  barely  glanced  at,  for  want  of  spaca 
Some  indelicacies  have  been  softened  in  stories  too 
good  to  omit,  but  this  process  leaves  their  spirit  un¬ 
changed.  For  our  author  is  always  antique  and 
always  natural.  When  he  errs  against  refinement, 
it  is  in  a  sort  of  infantine  naughtiness  —  not  with 
the  perverse  intention  of  a  modern  writer.  Indeed, 
his  high  moral  principle  cannot  fail  to  strike  even 
a  careless  reader.  His  blood  plainly  boils  at  in¬ 
justice  or  cruelty ;  and  whatever  superstition  he  may 
have  inherited  with  his  religious  creed,  he  has  an  in¬ 
tense  faith  in  an  overruling  Providence,  which,  spite 
of  some  anomalies  which  puzzle  him,  as  they  have  done 
the  wisest  in  all  ages,  does  on  the  whole  ordain  that 
“  the  righteous  shall  be  recompensed  in  the  earth- 
much  more  the  wicked  and  the  sinner.” 


END  OF  HERO  DOT  mi 


A  ncient  Classics  for  English  Readers 

EDITED  BY  THE 

REV.  W.  LUCAS  COLLINS.  M.A. 


C  M  S  A  B 


1 


CONTENTS  OF  THE  SERIES, 


HOMER  :  THE  ILIAD . By  the  Editor. 

HOMER :  THE  ODYSSEY,  .  .  By  the  Same.  ' 

HERODOTUS,  ...  By  George  C.  S wayne,  M.A. 

C/ESAR, . By  Anthony  Trollope. 

VIRGIL, . By  the  Editor. 

HORACE, . By  Theodore  Martin. 

ALSCHYLUS,  By  the  Right  Rev.  the  Bishop  of  Colombo. 
XENOPHON,  .  .  By  Sir  Alex.  Grant,  Bart.,  LL.D. 

CICERO, . By  the  Editor. 

SOPHOCLES,  ...  By  Clifton  W.  Collins,  M.A. 
PLINY,  By  A.  Church.  M.A.,  and  W.  J.  Brodribb,  M.A. 
EURIPIDES,  ...  By  William  Bodham  Donne. 
JUVENAL,  ....  By  Edward  Walford,  M.A. 

ARISTOPHANES, . By  the  Editor. 

HESIOD  AND  THEOGNIS,  By  the  Rev.  James  Davies,  M.aT 
PLAUTUS  AND  TERENCE,  ...  By  the  Editor. 

TACITUS,  ....  By  William  Bodham  Donne. 

LUCIAN, . By  the  Editor. 

PLATO, . By  Clifton  W.  Collins. 

THE  GREEK  ANTHOLOGY,  ...  By  Lord  Neaves. 

LIVY, . By  the  Editor. 

OVID, . By  the  Rev.  A.  Church,  M.A. 

CATULLUS,  TIBULLUS,  &  PROPERTIUS,  ByJ.  Davies,  M.A. 
DEMOSTHENES,  .  .  By  the  Rev.  W.  J.  Brodribb,  M.A. 

ARISTOTLE,  .  .  .By  Sir  Alex.  Grant,  Bart.,  LL.D. 

THUCYDIDES . By  the  Editor. 

LUCRETIUS . By  W.  H.  Mallock,  M.A. 

PINDAR,  ...  By  the  Rev.  F.  D.  Morice,  M.A, 


THE  COMMENTARIES 


OF 

C  M  S  A  R 


BY 

■w 

ANTHONY  TROLLOPE 


PHILADELPHIA: 

J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY 


..I 


•  I  I 


CONTENTS 


CRAP.  PAGB 

I.  INTRODUCTION,  . . 1 


II.  FIRST  BOOK  OF  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL. — CjESAR  DRIVES 
FIRST  THE  SWISS  AND  THEN  THE  GERMANS  OUT 
OF  GAUL.  — B.C.  58, . 28 

III.  SECOND  BOOK  OF  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.  —  CiESAR  SUB¬ 

DUES  THE  BELGIAN  TRIBES. — B.  C.  57,  .  .  45 

IV.  THIRD  BOOK  OF  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.  — CAESAR  SUB¬ 

DUES  THE  WESTERN  TRIBES  OF  GAUL. — B.  C.  56,  54 

V.  FOURTH  BOOK  OF  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.  —  CESAR 
CROSSES  THE  RHINE,  SLAUGHTERS  THE  GER¬ 
MANS,  AND  GOES  INTO  BRITAIN. — B.C.  55,  .  63 

VI.  FIFTH  BOOK  OF  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.  —  CiESAR* S 
SECOND  INVASION  OF  BRITAIN.  —  THE  GAULS 
RISE  AGAINST  HIM. — B.C.  54,  .  .  .  .74 

VII.  SIXTH  BOOK  OF  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL. — CiESAR  PUR¬ 
SUES  AMBIORIX. — THE  MANNERS  OF  THE  GAULS 
AND  OF  THE  GERMANS  ARE  CONTRASTED. — 


CONTENTS. 


vf 

VIII.  SEVENTH  BOOK  OF  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL. — THE  REVOLT 

OF  VERCINGETORIX. — B.C.  52,  .  .  .  .  100 

IX.  FIRST  BOOK  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR.  —  C.ESAR  CROSSES 
THE  RUBICON. — FOLLOWS  POMPEY  TO  BRUNDU- 
SIUM. — AND  CONQUERS  AFRANIUS  IN  SPAIN. — 

B.C.  49, . 116 

X.  SECOND  BOOK  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. — THE  TAKING  OF 
MARSEILLES. — VARRO  IN  THE  SOUTH  OF  SPAIN. 

— THE  FATE  OF  CURIO  BEFORE  UTICA. — B.C.  49,  131 

XI.  THIRD  BOOK  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. — CiESAR  FOLLOWS 
POMPEY  INTO  ILLYRIA. — THE  LINES  OF  PETRA 
AND  THE  BATTLE  OF  PIIARSALIA. — B.C.  48,  .  146 

XII.  CONCLUSION,  •  . . 174 


CMS  A  R. 


CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTION. 

It  may  perhaps  be  fairly  said  that  the  Commentaries 
of  Caesar  are  the  beginning  of  modern  history.  He 
wrote,  indeed,  nearly  two  thousand  years  ago ;  but  he 
wrote,  not  of  times  then  long  past,  but  of  things  which 
were  done  under  his  own  eyes,  and  of  his  own  deeds. 
And  he  wrote  of  countries  with  which  we  are  familiar, 
— of  our  Britain,  for  instance,  which  he  twice  invaded, 
of  peoples  not  so  far  remote  but  that  we  can  identify 
them  with  our  neighbours  and  ourselves ;  and  he  so 
wrote  as  to  make  us  feel  that  we  are  reading  actual 
history,  and  not  romance.  The  simplicity  of  the  nar¬ 
ratives  which  he  has  left  is  their  chief  characteristic, 
if  not  their  greatest  charm.  We  feel  sure  that  the  cir¬ 
cumstances  which  he  tells  us  did  occur,  and  that  they 
occurred  very  nearly  as  he  tells  them.  He  deals  with 
those  great  movements  in  Europe  from  which  have 
a.  c.  vol.  iv.  A 


2 


C  JUS  AIL 


sprung,  and  to  which  we  can  trace,  the  present  politi¬ 
cal  condition  of  the  nations.  Interested  as  the  scholar, 
or  the  reader  of  general  literature,  may  he  in  the  great 
deeds  of  the  heroes  of  Greece,  and  in  the  burning  words 
of  Greek  orators,  it  is  almost  impossible  for  him  to 
connect  by  any  intimate  and  thoroughly-trusted  link 
the  fortunes  of  Athens,  or  Sparta,  or  Macedonia,  with 
our  own  times  and  our  own  position.  It  is  almost 
equally  difficult  to  do  so  in  regard  to  the  events  of 
Pome  and  the  Poman  power  before  the  time  of  Caesar. 
We  cannot  realise  and  bring  home  to  ourselves  the 
Punic  Wars  or  the  Social  War,  the  Scipios  and  the 
Gracchi,  or  even  the  contest  for  power  between  Marius 
and  Sulla,  as  we  do  the  Gallic  Wars  and  the  invasion 
of  Britain,  by  which  the  civilisation  of  Pome  was  first 
carried  westwards,  or  the  great  civil  wars, — the  “  Bei- 
lum  Civile,” — by  which  was  commenced  a  line  of  em¬ 
perors  continued  almost  down  to  our  own  days,  and  to 
which  in  some  degree  may  be  traced  the  origin  and 
formation  of  almost  every  existing  European  nation. 
It  is  no  doubt  true  that  if  we  did  but  know  the  facts 
correctly,  we  could  refer  back  every  political  and  social 
condition  of  the  present  day  to  the  remotest  period  of 
man’s  existence ;  but  the  interest  fails  us  when  the 
facts  become  doubtful,  and  when  the  mind  begins  to  fear 
that  history  is  mixed  with  romance.  Herodotus  is  so 
mythic  that  what  delight  we  have  in  his  writings  conies 
in  a  very  slight  degree  from  any  desire  on  our  part  to 
form  a  continuous  chain  from  the  days  of  which  he 
wrote  down  to  our  own.  Between  the  marvels  of  He¬ 
rodotus  and  the  facts  of  Caesar  there  is  a  great  interval, 


INTRODUCTION. 


3 


from  which  have  come  down  to  us  the  works  of  various 
noble  historians ;  hut  with  Caesar  it  seems  that  that 
certainty  commences  which  we  would  wish  to  regard  as 
the  distinguishing  characteristic  of  modem  history. 

It  must  he  remembered  from  the  beginning  that 
Caesar  wrote  only  of  what  he  did  or  of  what  he  caused 
to  he  done  himself.  At  least  he  only  so  wrote  in  the 
two  works  of  his  which  remain  to  us.  We  are  told 
that  he  produced  much  besides  his  Commentaries, — 
among  other  works,  a  poem, — but  the  two  Commen¬ 
taries  are  all  of  his  that  we  have.  The  former,  in  seven 
books,  relates  the  facts  of  his  seven  first  campaigns  in 
Gaul  for  seven  consecutive  years ;  those  campaigns  in 
which  he  reduced  the  nations  living  between  the  Rhine, 
the  Rhone,  the  Mediterranean,  the  Pyrenees,  and  the 
sea  which  we  now  call  the  British  Channel.*  The 
latter  Commentary  relates  the  circumstances  of  the 
civil  war  in  which  he  contended  for  power  against  Poni- 
pey,  his  former  colleague,  with  Crassus,  in  the  first 
triumvirate,  and  established  that  empire  to  which 
Augustus  succeeded  after  a  second  short-lived  trium¬ 
virate  between  himself  and  Lepidus  and  Antony. 

It  is  the  object  of  this  little  volume  to  describe 
Caesar’s  Commentaries  for  the  aid  of  those  who  do 
not  read  Latin,  and  not  to  write  Roman  history' 
but  it  may  be  well  to  say  something,  in  a  few  intro¬ 
ductory  lines,  of  the  life  and  character  of  our  author. 
We  are  all  more  or  less  familiar  with  the  name  of 
Julius  Caesar.  In  our  early  days  we  learned  that  he 

*  There  is  an  eighth  hook,  referring  to  an  eighth  and  ninth 
campaign,  hut  it  is  not  the  work  of  Caesar. 


4 


CjESA  r. 


was  the  first  of  those  twelve  Roman  emperors  with 
whose  names  it  was  thought  right  to  burden  oul 
young  memories ;  and  we  were  taught  to  understand 
that  when  he  began  to  reign  there  ceased  to  exist  that 
form  of  republican  government  in  which  two  consuls 
elected  annually  did  in  truth  preside  over  the  fortunes 
of  the  empire.  There  had  first  been  seven  kings, — 
whose  names  have  also  been  made  familiar  to  us, — then 
the  consuls,  and  after  them  the  twelve  Caesars,  of 
whom  the  great  Julius  was  the  first.  So  much  we 
all  know  of  him  ;  and  we  know,  too,  that  he  was  killed 
in  the  Capitol  by  conspirators  just  as  he  was  going  to 
become  emperor,  although  this  latter  scrap  of  know¬ 
ledge  seems  to  be  paradoxically  at  variance  with  the 
former.  In  addition  to  this  we  know  that  he  was  a 
great  commander  and  conqueror  and  writer,  who  did 
things  and  wrote  of  them  in  the  “  veni,  vidi,  vici  ” 
style  —  saying  of  himself,  “I  came,  I  saw,  I  con¬ 
quered.”  We  know  that  a  great  Roman  army  was 
intrusted  to  him,  and  that  he  used  this  army  for  the 
purpose  of  establishing  his  own  power  in  Rome  by 
taking  a  portion  of  it  over  the  Rubicon,  which  little 
river  separated  the  province  which  he  had  been  ap¬ 
pointed  to  govern  from  the  actual  Roman  territory 
within  which,  as  a  military  servant  of  the  magistrates 
of  the  republic,  he  had  no  business  to  appear  as  a 
genera]  1  the  head  of  his  army.  So  much  we  know ; 
and  in  the  following  very  short  memoir  of  the  great 
commander  and  historian,  no  effort  shall  be  made, — as 
has  been  so  frequently  and  so  painfully  done  for  us  in 
late  years, — to  upset  the  teachings  of  our  youth,  and  to 


INTRODUCTION. 


5 


prove  that  the  old  lessons  were  wrong.  They  were 
all  fairly  accurate,  and  shall  now  only  be  supplemented 
by  a  few  further  circumstances  which  were  doubtless 
once  learned  by  all  school-boys  and  school-girls,  but 
which  some  may  perhaps  have  forgotten  since  those 
happy  days. 

Dean  Merivale,  in  one  of  the  early  chapters  of  his 
admirable  history  of  the  Ilomans  under  the  Empire, 
declares  that  Caius  Julius  Caesar  is  the  greatest  name 
in  history.  He  makes  the  claim  without  reserve,  and 
attaches  to  it  no  restriction,  or  suggestion  that  such  is 
simply  his  own  opinion.  Claims  of  this  nature,  made 
by  writers  on  behalf  of  their  pet-heroes,  we  are,  all  of 
us,  generally  inclined  to  dispute;  but  this  claim,  great 
as  it  is,  can  hardly  be  disputed.  Dr  Merivale  does  not 
say  that  Caesar  was  the  greatest  man  that  ever  lived. 
In  measuring  such  supremacy,  men  take  for  themselves 
various  standards.  To  satisfy  the  judgment  of  one,  it 
is  necessary  that  a  poet  should  be  selected ;  for  another, 
a  teacher  of  religion;  for  a  third,  some  intellectual  hero 
who  has  assisted  in  discovering  the  secrets  of  nature 
by  the  operations  of  his  own  brain;  for  a  fourth,  a 
ruler, — and  so  on.  But  the  names  of  some  of  these 
cannot  be  said  to  be  great  in  history.  Homer,  Luther, 
Galileo,  and  Charles  V.,  are  great  names, — as  are  also 
Shakespeare,  Knox,  Queen  Elizabeth,  and  Newton. 
Among  these,  the  two  rulers  would  probably  be  the 
least  in  general  admiration.  But  no  one  can  assert  that 
the  names  of  the  poets,  divines,  and  philosophers,  are 
greater  than  theirs  in  history.  The  Dean  means  that 
of  all  men  who  have  lived,  and  whose  deeds  are  known 


6 


CAESAR. 


to  us,  Julius  Caesar  did  most  to  move  the  world;  and 
we  think  that  the  Dean  is  right.  Those  whom  we 
might,  perhaps,  compare  with  Caesar,  are  Alexander, 
Charlemagne,  Cromwell,  Napoleon,  and  Washington. 
In  regard  to  the  first  two,  we  feel,  when  claims  are 
made  for  them,  that  they  are  grounded  on  the  perform* 
ance  of  deeds  only  partially  known  to  us.  In  the  days 
of  Alexander,  history  was  still  dark, — and  it  had  be¬ 
come  dark  again  in  those  of  Charlemagne.  What  Crom¬ 
well  did  was  confined  to  our  OAvn  islands,  and,  though 
he  was  great  for  us,  he  does  not  loom  as  large  before 
the  eyes  of  mankind  in  general  as  does  one  who  moved 
all  Europe,  present  and  future.  If  there  be  any  fair 
antagonist  to  Caesar  in  this  claim,  it  is  Napoleon.  As 
a  soldier  he  was  equally  great,  and  the  area  of  his 
operations  was  as  extended.  But  there  is  an  old  say¬ 
ing  which  tells  us  that  no  one  can  be  sure  of  his 
fortune  till  the  end  shall  have  come ;  and  Caesar’s 
death  on  the  steps  of  the  Capitol  was  more  in  accord¬ 
ance  with  our  ideas  of  greatness  than  that  of  Napo¬ 
leon  at  St  Helena.  We  cannot,  moreover,  but  feel 
that  there  were  fewer  drawbacks  from  greatness  in  the 
personal  demeanour  of  the  Roman  “  Imperator  ”  and 
Dictator  than  in  that  of  the  French  Emperor.  For 
Julius  Caesar  was  never  really  emperor,  in  that  sense  in 
which  we  use  the  word,  and  in  accordance  with  which 
his  successor  Augustus  really  became  an  emperor.  As 
to  Washington,  we  may  perhaps  allow  that  in  moral 
attributes  he  was  the  greatest  of  all.  To  aid  his 
country  he  dared  all, — even  a  rebel’s  disgraceful  death, 
had  he  not  succeeded  where  success  was  most  improba 


INTRODUCTION. 


7 


ble;  and  in  all  that  he  attempted  he  succeeded.  His 
is  the  name  that  culminates  among  those  of  the  men 
who  made  the  United  States  a  nation,  and  does  so  by 
the  eager  consent  of  all  its  people.  And  his  work 
came  altogether  from  patriotism, — with  no  alloy  of 
personal  ambition.  But  it  cannot  be  said  that  the 
things  he  did  were  great  as  those  which  were  done 
by  Caesar,  or  that  he  himself  was  as  potent  in  the 
doing  of  them.  He  ventured  everything  with  as  grand 
a  purpose  as  ever  warmed  the  heart  of  man,  and  he 
was  successful ;  but  the  things  which  he  did  were  in 
themselves  small  in  comparison  'with  those  effected  by 
his  less  noble  rival  for  fame.  Mommsen,  the  German 
historian,  describes  Caesar  as  a  man  too  great  for  the 
scope  of  his  intelligence  and  power  of  delineation. 
“  The  historian,”  he  says,  speaking  of  Caesar,  “  when 
once  in  a  thousand  years  he  encounters  the  perfect, 
can  only  be  silent  regarding  it.”  Napoleon  also,  in  his 
life  of  Caesar,  paints  his  hero  as  perfect;  but  Napoleon 
wThen  doing  so  is,  in  fact,  claiming  godlike  perfection 
for  that  second  Caesar,  his  uncle.  And  the  perfection 
which  he  claims  is  not  that  of  which  Mommsen 
speaks.  The  German  intends  to  convey  to  us  his 
conviction  that  Caesar  was  perfect  in  human  capacity 
and  intelligence.  Napoleon  claims  for  him  moral  per¬ 
fection.  “  We  may  be  convinced,”  says  the  Emperor, 
“  by  the  above  facts,  that  during  his  first  consulate, 
one  only  motive  animated  Caesar, — namely,  the  public 
interest.”  We  cannot,  however,  quite  take  the  facts 
as  the  Emperor  of  the  French  gives  them  to  us,  nor 
can  we  sha^e  his  conviction ;  but  the  common  consent 


8 


C2ESA  R. 


of  reading  men  will  probably  acknowledge  that  there  is 
in  history  no  name  so  great  as  that  of  Julius  Caesar, — 
of  whose  written  works  some  account  is  intended  to  be 
given  in  the  following  chapters. 

He  was  born  just  one  hundred  years  before  Christ, 
and  came  of  an  old  noble  Roman  family,  of  which  Ju¬ 
lius  and  not  Caesar  was  the  distinctive  name.  Whence 
came  the  name  of  Caesar  has  been  a  matter  of  doubt 
and  of  legend.  Some  say  that  it  arose  from  the  thick 
hair  of  one  of  the  Julian  tribe ;  others  that  a  certain 
scion  of  the  family,  like  Macduff,  “  was  from  his  mo¬ 
ther’s  womb  untimely  ripped,”  for  which  derivations 
Latin  words  are  found  to  be  opportune.  Again  we  are 
told  that  one  of  the  family  once  kept  an  elephant, — and 
we  are  referred  to  some  eastern  language  in  which  the 
word  for  elephant  has  a  sound  like  Caesar.  Another 
legend  also  rose  from  Caesar’s  name,  which,  in  the  Gal¬ 
lic  language  of  those  days, — very  luckily  for  Caesar, — 
sounded  as  though  one  should  say,  “  Send  him  back.” 
Caesar’s  horse  once  ran  away  with  him,  and  carried  him 
over  to  the  enemy.  An  insolent  Gaul,  who  knew  him, 
called  out,  “  Caesar,  Caesar !  ”  and  so  the  other  Gauls, 
obeying  the  order  supposed  to  be  given,  allowed  the 
illustrious  one  to  escape.  It  must  be  acknowledged, 
however,  that  the  learned  German  who  tells  us  this 
storj7  expresses  a  contemptuous  conviction  that  it  can¬ 
not  be  true.  Whatever  may  have  produced  the  word, 
its  significance,  derived  from  the  doings  and  writings 
of  Caius  Julius,  has  been  very  great.  It  has  come  to 
mean  in  various  languages  the  holder  of  despotic  power ; 
and  though  it  is  said  that,  as  a  fact,  the  Russian  title 


INTRODUCTION. 


9 


Czar  has  no  connection  with  the  Roman  word,  so  great 
is  the  prestige  of  the  name,  that  in  the  minds  of  men 
the  popular  appellation  of  the  Russian  Emperor  will 
always  he  connected  with  that  of  the  line  of  the  Roman 
Emperor. 

Caesar  was  the  nephew  by  marriage  of  that  Marias 
who,  with  alternations  of  bloody  successes  and  seem¬ 
ingly  irreparable  ruin,  had  carried  on  a  contest  with 
Sulla  for  supreme  power  in  the  republic.  Sulla  in 
these  struggles  had  represented  the  aristocrats  and  pat¬ 
ricians, — what  we  perhaps  may  call  the  Conservative 
interest ;  while  Marius,  whose  origin  was  low,  who  had 
been  a  common  soldier,  and,  rising  from  the  ranks,  had 
become  the  darling  of  the  army  and  of  the  people,  may 
perhaps  be  regarded  as  one  who  would  have  called  him¬ 
self  a  Liberal,  had  any  such  term  been  known  in  those 
days.  His  liberality, — as  has  been  the  case  with  other 
political  leaders  since  his  time, — led  him  to  personal 
power.  He  was  seven  times  Consul,  having  secured  his 
seventh  election  by  atrocious  barbarities  and  butcher- 
ings  of  his  enemies  in  the  city ;  and  during  this  last  con¬ 
sulship  he  died.  The  young  Caesar,  though  a  patrician 
by  birth,  succeeded  his  uncle  in  the  popular  party,  and 
seems  from  a  very  early  age, — from  his  very  boyhood, — 
to  have  looked  forward  to  the  power  which  he  might 
win  by  playing  his  cards  with  discretion. 

And  very  discreet  he  was, — self-confident  to  a  won¬ 
derful  degree,  and  patient  also.  It  is  to  be  presumed 
that  most  of  our  readers  know  how  the  Roman  Repub¬ 
lic  fell,  and  the  Roman  Empire  became  established  as 
the  result  of  the  civil  wars  which  began  with  Marius 


10 


CAES  A  R. 


and  ended  with  that  “  young  Octavius”  whom  we  better 
recognise  as  Augustus  Csesar.  Julius  Caesar  was  the 
nephew  by  marriage  of  Marius,  and  Augustus  was  the 
great-nephew  and  heir  of  Julius.  By  means  of  con- 
sciiptions  and  murders,  worse  in  their  nature,  though 
less  probably  in  number,  than  those  which  disgraced 
the  French  Revolution,  the  power  which  Marius 
achieved  almost  without  foresight,  for  which  the  great 
Caesar  strove  from  his  youth  upwards  with  constant 
foresight,  was  confirmed  in. the  hands  of  Augustus,  and 
bequeathed  by  him  to  the  emperors.  In  looking  back 
at  the  annals  of  the  world,  we  shall  generally  find  that 
despotic  power  has  first  grown  out  of  popular  move¬ 
ment  against  authority.  It  was  so  with  our  own 
Cromwell,  has  twice  been  so  in  the  history  of  modern 
France,  and  certainly  was  so  in  the  formation  of  the 
Roman  Empire.  In  the  great  work  of  establishing 
that  empire,  it  was  the  mind  and  hand  and  courage  of 
Csesar  that  brought  about  the  result,  whether  it  was  for 
good  or  evil.  And  in  looking  at  the  lives  of  the  three 
men — Marius,  Caesar,  and  Augustus,  who  followed  each 
other,  and  all  worked  to  the  same  end,  the  destruction 
of  that  oligarchy  which  was  called  a  Republic  in  Rome — 
we  find  that  the  one  was  a  man,  while  the  others  were 
beasts  of  prey.  The  cruelties  of  Marius  as  an  old  man, 
and  of  Augustus  as  a  young  one,  were  so  astounding  as, 
even  at  this  distance,  to  horrify  the  reader,  though  he 
remembers  that  Christianity  had  not  yet  softened  men’s 
hearts.  Marius,  the  old  man,  almost  swam  in  the 
blood  of  his  enemies,  as  also  did  his  rival  Sulla ;  but 
the  young  Octavius,  he  whom  the  gods  favoured  so 


7iV  TRO  DUCT  ION. 


11 


long  as  the  almost  divine*  Augustus,  cemented  his 
throne  with  the  blood  of  his  friends.  To  complete  the 
satisfaction  of  Lepidus  and  Antony,  his  comrades  in 
the  second  triumvirate,  he  did  not  scruple  to  add  to 
the  list  of  those  who  were  to  die,  the  names  of  the 
nearest  and  dearest  to  him.  Between  these  monsters 
of  cruelty — between  Marius  and  Sulla,  who  went  before 
him,  and  Octavius  and  Antony  who  followed  him — 
Caesar  has  become  famous  for  clemency.  And  yet  the 
hair  of  the  reader  almost  stands  on  end  with  horror  as 
Caesar  recounts  in  page  after  page  the  stories  of  cities 
burned  to  the  ground,  and  whole  communities  slaugh¬ 
tered  in  cold  blood.  Of  the  destruction  of  the  women 
and  children  of  an  entire  tribe,  Caesar  wrill  leave  the 
unimpassioned  record  in  one  line.  But  this  at  least 
may  be  said  of  Caesar,  that  he  took  no  delight  in 
slaughter.  When  it  became  in  his  sight  expedient' that 
a  people  should  suffer,  so  that  others  might  learn  to 
yield  and  to  obey,  he  could  give  the  order  apparently 
without  an  effort.  And  wre  hear  of  no  regrets,  or  of  any 
remorse  which  followed  the  execution  of  it.  But  blood¬ 
shed  in  itself  was  not  sweet  to  him.  He  was  a  discreet, 
far-seeing  man,  and  could  do  without  a  scruple  what  dis¬ 
cretion  and  caution  demanded  of  him. 

And  it  may  be  said  of  Caesar  that  he  was  in  some 
sort  guided  in  bis  life  by  sense  of  duty  and  love  ol 
country ;  as  it  may  also  be  said  of  his  great  contem¬ 
poraries,  Pompey  and  Cicero.  With  those  who  went 

*  Coelo  tonantem  credidimus  Jovem 
Regnare  ;  preesens  Divus  liabebitur 
Augustus. 


12 


CuESAR. 


before  him,  Marius  and  Sulla,  as  also  with  those  who 
followed  him,  Antony  and  Augustus,  it  does  not  seem 
that  any  such  motives  actuated  them.  Love  of  power 
and  greed,  hatred  of  their  enemies  and  personal  ambi¬ 
tion,  a  feeling  that  they  were  urged  on  by  their  fates 
to  seek  for  high  place,  and  a  resolve  that  it  was  better 
to  kill  than  be  killed,  impelled  them  to  their  courses. 
These  feelings  were  strong,  too,  with  Caesar,  as  they  are 
strong  to  this  day  with  statesmen  and  with  generals ; 
but  mingled  with  them  in  Caesar’s  breast  there  was  a 
noble  idea,  that  he  would  be  true  to  the  greatness  of 
Rome,  and  that  he  would  grasp  at  power  in  order  that 
the  Roman  Empire  might  be  well  governed.  Augustus, 
doubtless,  ruled  well;  and  to  Julius  Caesar  very  little 
scope  for  ruling  was  allowed  after  his  battling  was 
done ;  but  to  Augustus  no  higher  praise  can  be 
assigned  than  that  he  had  the  intelligence  to  see  that 
the  temporary  wellbeing  of  the  citizens  of  Rome  was 
the  best  guarantee  for  his  own  security. 

Early  in  life  Caesar  lifted  himself  to  high  position, 
though  be  did  so  in  the  midst  of  dangers.  It  was  the 
wonder  of  those  around  him  that  Sulla  did  not  mur¬ 
der  him  when  he  was  young, — crush  him  while  he 
was  yet,  as  it  were,  in  his  shell ;  but  Sulla  spared 
him,  and  he  rose  apace.  We  are  told  that  he  became 
priest  of  Jupiter  at  seventeen,  and  he  was  then  already 
a  married  man.  He  early  trained  himself  as  a  public 
orator,  and  amidst  every  danger  espoused  the  popular 
cause  in  Rome.  Ho  served  his  country  in  the  East, — in 
Bithynia,  probably, — escaping,  by  doing  so,  the  perils  of 
a  residence  in  the  city.  He  became  Quaestor  and  then 


INTRODUCTION. 


13 


/Edile,  assisted  by  all  the  Marian  party,  as  that  party 
would  assist  the  rising  man  whom  they  regarded  as 
their  future  leader.  He  attacked  and  was  attacked, 
and  was  “  indefatigable  in  harassing  the  aristo¬ 
cracy,”  *  who  strove,  but  strove  in  vain,  to  crush 
him.  Though  young,  and  addicted  to  all  the 
pleasures  of  youth, — a  trifler,  as  Sulla  once  called 
him, —  he  omitted  to  learn  nothing  that  was  neces¬ 
sary  for  him  to  know  as  a  chief  of  a  great  party 
and  a  leader  of  great  armies.  When  he  was  thirty- 
seven  he  was  made  Pontifex  Maximus,  the  official 
chief  of  the  priesthood  of  Pome,  the  office  greatest 
in  honour  of  any  in  the  city,  although  opposed  by 
the  whole  weight  of  the  aristocracy,  and  although 
Catulus  was  a  candidate,  who,  of  all  that  party,  was 
the  highest  not  only  in  renown  but  in  virtue.  He 
became  Praetor  the  next  year,  though  again  he  was 
opposed  by  all  the  influence  of  those  who  feared  him. 
And,  after  his  twelve  months  of  office,  he  assumed 
the  government  of  Spain, — the  province  allotted  to 
him  as  Propraetor,  in  accordance  with  the  usage  of  the 
Pepublic, — in  the  teeth  of  a  decree  of  the  Senate  order¬ 
ing  him  to  remain  in  Pome.  Here  he  gained  his  first 
great  military  success,  first  made  himself  known  to 
his  soldiery,  and  came  back  to  Pome  entitled  to  the 
honour  of  a  triumph. 

But  there  was  still  another  step  on  the  ladder  of  the 
State  before  he  could  assume  the  position  which  no 
doubt  he  already  saw  before  him.  He  must  be  Consul 
before  he  could  be  the  master  of  many  legions,  and  in 
*  The  words  are  taken  from  Dean  Merivale’s  history. 


u 


CAESAR. 


order  that  he  might  sue  in  proper  form  for  the  consul* 
ship,  it  was  necessary  that  he  should  abandon  his 
Triumph.  He  could  only  triumph  as  holding  the  office 
of  General  of  the  Republic’s  forces,  and  as  General  or 
Imperator  he  could  not  enter  the  city.  He  abandoned 
the  Triumph,  sued  for  his  office  in  the  common  fashion, 
and  enabled  the  citizens  to  say  that  he  preferred  their 
service  to  his  personal  honours.  At  the  age  of  forty-one 
he  became  Consul.  It  was  during  the  struggle  for  the 
consulship  that  the  triumvirate  was  formed,  of  which 
subsequent  ages  have  heard  so  much,  and  of  which 
Romans  at  the  time  heard  probably  so  little.  Pompey, 
who  had  been  the  political  child  of  Sulla,  and  had 
been  the  hope  of  the  patricians  to  whom  he  belonged, 
had  returned  to  Rome  after  various  victories  which  he 
had  achieved  as  Proconsul  in  the  East,  had  triumphed, 
— and  had  ventured  to  recline  on  his  honours,  dis¬ 
banding  his  army  and  taking  to  himself  the  credit  of 
subsiding  into  privacy.  The  times  were  too  rough  for 
such  honest  duty,  and  Pompey  found  himself  for  a 
while  slighted  by  his  party.  Though  he  had  thought 
himself  able  to  abandon  power,  he  could  not  bear  the 
loss  of  it.  It  may  be  that  he  had  conceived  himself 
able  to  rule  the  city  by  his  influence  without  the  aid 
of  his  legions.  Caesar  tempted  him,  and  they  two  with 
Crassus,  who  was  wanted  for  his  wealth,  formed  the 
first  triumvirate.  By  such  pact  among  themselves 
they  were  to  rule  all  Rome  and  all  Rome’s  provinces ; 
but  doubtless,  by  resolves  within  himself  of  which  no 
one  knew,  Caesar  intended  even  then  to  grasp  the  do¬ 
minion  of  the  whole  in  his  own  hands.  During  the 


INTRODUCTION. 


15 


years  that  followed, — the  years  in  which  Caesar  was  em 
•  gaged  in  his  Gallic  wars, — Pompey  remained  at  Pome, 
not  indeed  as  Caesar’s  friend — for  that  hollow  friend¬ 
ship  was  brought  to  an  end  by  the  death  of  Julia, 
Caesar’s  daughter,  whom  Pompey,  though  five  years 
Caesar’s  elder,  had  married — but  in  undecided  rivalship 
to  the  active  man  who  in  foreign  wars  was  preparing 
legions  by  which  to  win  the  Empire.  Afterwards, 
when  Caesar,  as  we  shall  hear,  had  crossed  the  Pubicon, 
their  enmity  was  declared.  It  was  natural  that  they 
should  be  enemies.  In  middle  life,  Pompey,  as  we 
have  seen,  had  married  Caesar’s  daughter,  and  Caesar’s 
second  wife  had  been  a  Pompeia.*  But  Avlien  they 
were  young,  and  each  was  anxious  to  attach  himself  to 
the  politics  of  his  own  party,  Pompey  had  married  the 
daughter-in-law  of  Sulla,  and  Caesar  had  married  the 
daughter  of  Cinna,  who  had  almost  been  joined  with 

*  She  was  that  wife  who  was  false  with  Clodius,  and  whom 
Caesar  divorced,  declaring  that  Caesar’s  wife  must  not  even  he 
suspected.  He  would  not  keep  the  false  wife ;  neither  would 
he  at  that  moment  take  part  in  the  accusation  against  Clodius, 
who  was  of  his  party,  and  against  whom  such  accusation  hacked 
by  Caesar  would  have  been  fatal.  The  intrusion  of  the  dema¬ 
gogue  into  Caesar’s  house  in  the  pursuit  of  Caesar’s  wife  dur¬ 
ing  the  mysteries  of  the  Bona  Dea  became  the  subject  of  a  trial 
in  Home.  The  offence  was  terrible  and  was  notorious.  Clodius, 
who  was  hated  and  feared  by  the  patricians,  was  a  favourite 
with  the  popular  party.  The  offender  was  at  last  brought  to 
trial,  and  was  acquitted  by  venal  judges.  A  word  spoken  by 
the  injured  husband  would  have  insured  his  condemnation, 
but  that  word  Caesar  would  not  speak.  His  wife  he  could 
divorce,  but  he  would  not  jeopardise  his  power  with  his  own 
party  by  demanding  the  punishment  of  him  who  had  debauched 
her. 


16 


C  jES A  R. 


Marius  in  leading  the  popular  party.  Such  having 
been  the  connection  they  had  made  in  their  early  lives,  it 
was  natural  that  Pompey  and  Csesar  should  be  enemies, 
and  that  the  union  of  those  two  with  any  other  third 
in  a  triumvirate  should  be  but  a  hollow  compromise, 
planned  and  carried  out  only  that  time  might  be  gained. 

Caesar  was  now  Consul,  and  from  his  consular  chair 
laughed  to  scorn  the  Senate  and  the  aristocratic  col¬ 
league  with  whom  he  was  joined, — Bibulus,  of  whom 
Ave  shall  again  hear  in  the  Commentary  on  the  civil 
war.  During  his  year  of  office  lie  seems  to  have 
ruled  almost  supreme  and  almost  alone.  The  Senate 
was  forced  to  do  his  bidding,  and  Pompey,  at  any  rate 
for  this  year,  was  his  ally.  We  already  know  that  to 
praetors  and  to  consuls,  after  their  year  of  office  in  the 
city,  were  confided  the  government  of  the  great  pro¬ 
vinces  of  the  Republic,  and  that  these  officers  while  so 
governing  were  called  propraetors  and  proconsuls. 
After  his  praetorship  Caesar  had  gone  for  a  year  to 
southern  Spain,  the  province  which  had  been  assigned 
to  him,  whence  he  came  back  triumphant, — but  not  to 
enjoy  his  Triumph.  At  the  expiration  of  his  consul¬ 
ship  the  joint  provinces  of  Cisalpine  Gaul  and  Illy- 
ricum  were  assigned  to  him,  not  for  one  year,  but  for 
five  years ;  and  to  these  Avas  added  Transalpine  Gaul, 
by  which  grant  dominion  Avas  given  to  him  over  all 
that  country  which  Ave  now  know  as  Northern  Italy, 
OA^er  Illyria  to  the  east,  and  to  the  west  across  the 
Alps,  over  the  Roman  province  already  established  in 
the  south  of  France.  This  province,  bounded  on  the 
north  by  Lake  Leman  and  the  SAviss  mountains,  ran 


INTRODUCTION. 


17 


couth  to  the  Mediterranean,  and  to  the  west  half 
across  the  great  neck  of  land  which  joins  Spain  to 
the  continent  of  Europe.  This  province  of  Trans¬ 
alpine  Gaul  was  already  Roman,  and  to  Caesar  was 
intrusted  the  task  of  defending  this,  and  of  defending 
Rome  itself,  from  the  terrible  valour  of  the  Gauls. 
That  he  might  do  this  it  was  necessary  that  he  should 
collect  his  legions  in  that  other  Gaul  which  we  now 
know  as  the  north  of  Italy. 

It  does  not  seem  that  there  was  any  preconceived 
idea  that  Caesar  should  reduce  all  Gallia  beneath  the 
Roman  yoke.  Hitherto  Rome  had  feared  the  Gauls, 
and  had  been  subject  to  their  inroads.  The  Gauls  in 
former  years  had  even  made  their  way  as  invaders  into 
the  very  city,  and  had  been  bought  out  with  a  ransom. 
They  had  spread  themselves  over  Northern  Italy,  and 
hence,  when  Northern  Italy  was  conquered  by  Roman 
arms,  it  became  a  province  under  the  name  of  Cisalpine 
Gaul.  Then,  during  the  hundred  years  which  preceded 
Caesar’s  wars,  a  province  was  gradually  founded  and 
extended  in  the  south  of  France,  of  which  Marseilles 
was  the  kernel.  Massilia  had  been  a  colony  of  Greek 
merchants,  and  was  supported  by  the  alliance  of  Rome. 
Whither  such  alliance  leads  is  known  to  all  readers 
of  history.  The  Greek  colony  became  a  Roman  town, 
and  the  Roman  province  stretched  itself  around  the 
town.  It  was  Caesar’s  duty,  as  governor  of  Transalpine 
Gaul,  to  see  that  the  poor  province  was  not  hurt  by 
those  ravaging  Gauls.  How  he  performed  that  duty 
he  tells  us  in  his  first  Commentary. 

During  the  fourth  year  of  his  office,  while  Pompoy 
a.  c.  vol.  iv.  B 


18 


CAESAR. 


and  Crassus,  liis  colleagues  in  tlie  then  existing  trium¬ 
virate,  were  consuls,  his  term  of  dominion  over  the 
three  provinces  was  prolonged  by  the  addition  of  five 
other  years.  But  he  did  not  see  the  end  of  the  ten 
years  in  that  scene  of  action.  Julia,  his  daughter, 
had  died,  and  his  great  rival  was  estranged  from  him. 
The  Senate  had  clamoured  for  his  recall,  and  Pompey, 
with  doubtful  words,  had  assented.  A  portion  of  his 
army  was  demanded  from  him,  was  sent  by  him  into  Italy 
in  obedience  to  the  Senate,  and  shortly  afterwards  was 
placed  under  the  command  of  Pompey.  Then  Caesar 
found  that  the  Italian  side  of  the  Alps  was  the  more 
convenient  for  his  purposes,  that  the  Hither  or  Cis¬ 
alpine  Gaul  demanded  his  services,  and  that  it  would 
he  well  for  him  to  he  near  the  Bubicon.  The  second 
Commentary,  in  three  hooks,  ‘  De  Bello  Civili,’  giving 
us  his  record  of  the  civil  war,  tells  us  of  his  deeds  and 
fortunes  for  the  next  two  years, — the  years  b.c.  49  and 
48.  The  continuation  of  his  career  as  a  general  is 
related  in  three  other  Commentaries,  not  hy  his  own 
hand,  to  which,  as  being  beyond  the  scope  of  this 
volume,  only  short  allusion  will  be  made.  Then  camo 
one  year  of  power,  full  of  glory,  and,  upon  the  whole, 
well  used ;  and  after  that  there  came  the  end,  of  which 
the  tale  has  been  so  often  told,  when  he  fell,  stabbed 
by  friend  and  foe,  at  the  foot  of  Pompey’s  pillar  in 
the  Capitol, 

It  is  only  further  necessary  that  a  few  words  should 
be  added  as  to  the  character  of  Caesar’s  "writings, — for 
it  is  of  his  writings  rather  than  of  his  career  that  it  is 
intended  here  to  give  some  idea  to  those  who  have  not 


INTRODUCTION. 


19 


an  opportunity  of  reading  them.  Caesar’s  story  can 
hardly  be  told  in  this  little  volume,  for  it  is  the  his¬ 
tory  of  the  world  as  the  world  then  was.  The  word 
which  our  author  has  chosen  as  a  name  for  his  work, — 
and  which  now  has  become  so  well  known  as  connected 
with  Caesar,  that  he  who  uses  it  seems  to  speak  of  Caesar, 
— means,  in  Caesar’s  sense,  a  Memoir.  Were  it  not  for 
Caesar,  a  “  Commentary  ”  would  be  taken  to  signify  that 
which  the  critic  had  added,  rather  than  the  work  which 
the  author  had  first  produced.  Caesar’s  ‘ ‘  Commentaries  ” 
are  memoirs  written  by  himself,  descriptive  of  his  differ¬ 
ent  campaigns,  in  which  he  treats  of  himself  in  the  third 
person,  and  tells  his  story  as  it  might  have  been  told 
by  some  accompanying  scribe  or  secretary.  This  being 
so,  we  are  of  course  driven  to  inquire  whether  some 
accompanying  scribe  or  secretary  may  not  in  truth  have 
done  the  work.  And  there  is  doubtless  one  great  argu¬ 
ment  which  must  be  powerful  with  us  all  towards  the 
adoption  of  such  a  surmise.  The  amount  of  work  which 
Cassar  had  on  hand,  not  only  in  regard  to  his  campaigns, 
but  in  the  conduct  of  his  political  career,  was  so  great 
as  to  have  overtasked  any  brain  without  the  addition  of 
literary  labour.  Surely  no  man  was  ever  so  worked; 
for  the  doctrine  of  the  division  of  labour  did  not  pre¬ 
vail  then  in  great  affairs  as  it  does  now.  Ccesar  was  not 
only  a  general ;  he  was  also  an  engineer,  an  astrono¬ 
mer,  an  orator,,  a  poet,  a  high  priest — to  whom,  as  such, 
though  himself,  as  we  are  told,  a  disbeliever  in  the  gods 
of  Olympus,  the  intricate  and  complicated  system  of 
JEioman  worship  was  a  necessary  knowledge.  And  he 
was  a  politician,  of  whom  it  may  be  said  that,  though 


20 


CuESA  R. 


he  was  intimately  acquainted  with  the  ferocity  of  op* 
position,  he  knew  nothing  of  its  comparative  leisure. 
We  have  had  busy  statesmen  writing  books,  two  prime 
ministers  translating  Homer,  another  writing  novels,  a 
fourth  known  as  a  historian,  a  dramatist,  and  a  bio¬ 
grapher.  But  they  did  not  lead  armies  as  well  as  the 
Houses  of  Parliament,  and  they  were  occasionally  blessed 
by  the  opportunities  of  comparative  political  retirement 
which  opposition  affords.  Prom  the  beginning  of  the 
Gallic  war,  Caesar  was  fighting  in  person  every  year  but 
one  till  he  died.  It  was  only  by  personal  fighting  that 
he  could  obtain  success.  The  reader  of  the  following 
pages  will  find  that,  with  the  solitary  exception  of  the 
siege  of  Marseilles,  nothing  great  was  done  for  him  in 
his  absence.  And  he  had  to  make  his  army  as  well  as 
to  lead  it.  Legion  by  legion,  he  had  to  collect  it  as  he 
needed  it,  and  to  collect  it  by  the  force  of  his  own  char¬ 
acter  and  of  his  own  name.  The  abnormal  plunder 
with  which  it  was  necessary  that  his  soldiers  should  be 
allured  to  abnormal  valour  and  toil  had  to  be  given  as 
though  from  his  own  hand.  For  every  detail  of  the  sol¬ 
diers’  work  he  was  responsible  ;  and  at  the  same  time 
it  was  incumbent  on  him  so  to  manipulate  his  Tioman 
enemies  at  Pome, — and,  harder  still  than  that,  his  Bo- 
man  friends, — that  confusion  and  destruction  should  not 
fall  upon  him  as  a  politician.  Thus  weighted,  could 
he  write  his  own  Commentaries  ?  There  is  reason  to 
believe  that  there  was  collected  by  him,  no  doubt  with 
the  aid  of  his  secretaries,  a  large  body  of  notes  which 
were  known  as  the  Ephemerides  of  Caesar, — jottings 
down,  as  we  may  say,  taken  from  day  to  day.  Were 


INTRODUCTION. 


21 


not  the  Commentaries  which  hear  Caesar’s  name  com¬ 
posed  from  these  notes  by  some  learned  and  cunning 
secretary  ? 

These  notes  have  been  the  cause  of  much  scholastic 
wrath  to  some  of  the  editors  and  critics.  One  learned 
German,  hotly  arguing  that  Caesar  wrote  no  Ephem- 
erides,  does  allow  that  somebody  must  have  written 
down  the  measurements  of  the  journeys,  of  the  moun¬ 
tains,  and  of  the  rivers,  the  numbers  also  of  the  cap¬ 
tives  and  of  the  slaves.*  “  Not  even  I,”  says  he, — 
“  not  even  do  I  believe  that  Caesar  was  able  to  keep 
all  these  things  simply  in  his  memory.”  Then  he  goes 
on  to  assert  that  to  the  keeping  of  such  notes  any 
scribe  was  equal ;  and  that  it  was  improbable  that 
Caesar  could  have  found  time  for  the  keeping  of  notes 
when  absolutely  in  his  tent.  The  indignation  and 
enthusiasm  are  comic,  but  the  reasoning  seems  to 
be  good.  The  notes  were  probably  collected  under 
Caesar’s  immediate  eyes  by  his  secretaries ;  but  there 
is  ample  evidence  that  the  Commentaries  themselves 
are  Caesar’s  own  work.  They  seem  to  have  become 
known  at  once  to  the  learned  Romans  of  the  day;  and 
Cicero,  who  was  probably  the  most  learned,  and  cer¬ 
tainly  the  best  critic  of  the  time,  speaks  of  them  with¬ 
out  any  doubt  as  to  their  authorship.  It  was  at  once 
known  that  the  first  seven  hooks  of  the  Gallic  War 
were  written  by  Caesar,  and  that  the  eighth  was  not. 
This  seems  to  be  conclusive.  But  in  addition  to  this, 
there  is  internal  evidence.  Caesar  writes  in  the  third 
person,  and  is  very  careful  to  maintain  that  mode  of 

*  Nipperdeius. 


22 


CJES  A  R. 


expression.  But  he  is  not  so  careful  but  that  on  three 
or  four  occasions  lie  forgets  himself,  and  speaks  in  the 
first  person,  Ho  other  writer,  writing  for  Caesar,  would 
have  done  so.  And  there  are  certain  trifles  in  the 
mode  of  telling  the  story,  which  must  have  been  per¬ 
sonal  to  the  man.  He  writes  of  “  young”  Crassus,  and 
young”  Brutus,  as  no  scribe  would  have  written; 
and  he  shows,  first  his  own  pride  in  obtaining  a  legion 
from  Pompey’s  friendship,  and  then  his  unmeasured 
disgust  when  the  Senate  demand  and  obtain  from  him 
that  legion  and  another  one,  and  when  Pompey  uses 
them  against  himself,  in  a  fashion  which  would  go  far 
to  prove  the  authenticity  of  each  Commentary,  were 
any  proof  needed.  But  the  assent  of  Caesar’s  contem¬ 
poraries  suffices  for  this  without  other  evidence. 

And  it  seems  that  they  were  written  as  the  Avars 
were  carried  on,  and  that  each  was  published  at  once. 
Had  it  not  been  so,  we  could  not  understand  that 
Caesar  should  have  begun  the  second  Commentary 
before  he  had  finished  the  first.  Tt  seems  that  he 
was  hindered  by  the  urgency  of  the  Civil  War  from 
writing  what  with  him  would  have  been  the  two 
last  books  of  the  Gallic  War,  and  therefore  put  the 
completion  of  that  work  into  the  hands  of  his  friend 
Hirtius,  who  wrote  the  memoir  of  the  two  years  in 
one  book.  And  Caesar’s  mode  of  speaking  of  men  who 
were  at  one  time  his  friends  and  then  his  enemies, 
shows  that  his  first  Commentary  was  completed  and 
out  of  hand  before  the  other  was  written.  Labienus, 
who  in  the  Gallic  War  was  Caesar’s  most  trusted  lieu¬ 
tenant,  went  over  to  the  other  side  and  served  under 
Pompey  in  the  Civil  War.  He  could  not  have  failed 


INTRODUCTION . 


23 


to  allude  in  some  way  to  tlie  desertion  of  Labienus, 
in  the  first  Commentary,  had  Labienus  left  him  and 
joined  Pompey  while  the  first  Commentary  was  still 
in  his  hands. 

His  style  was  at  once  recognised  by  the  great  literary 
critic  of  the  day  as  being  excellent  for  its  intended 
purpose.  Caesar  is  manifestly  not  ambitious  of  liter¬ 
ary  distinction,  but  is  very  anxious  to  convey  to  his 
readers  a  narrative  of  his  own  doings,  which  shall  be 
graphic,  succinct,  intelligible,  and  sufficiently  well  ex¬ 
pressed  to  insure  the  attention  of  readers.  Cicero,  the 
great  critic,  thus  speaks  of  the  Commentaries  ;  “  Yalde 
quidam,  inquam,  probandos ;  nudi  enim  sunt,  recti,  et 
venusti,  omni  ornatu  orationis,  tanquam  veste,  de- 
tracto.”  The  passage  is  easily  understood,  but  not 
perhaps  very  easily  translated  into  English.  “  I  pro¬ 
nounce  them,  indeed,  to  be  very  commendable,  for 
they  are  simple,  straightforward,  agreeable,  with  all 
rhetorical  ornament  stripped  from  them,  as  a  garment 
is  stripped.”  This  was  written  by  Cicero  while  Caesar 
was  yet  living,  as  the  context  shows.  And  Cicero 
does  not  mean  to  imply  that  Caesar’s  writings  are  bald 
or  uncouth:  the  word  “venusti”  is  evidence  of 
this.  And  again,  speaking  of  Caesar’s  language, 
Cicero  says  that  Caesar  spoke  with  more  finished 
choice  of  words  than  almost  any  other  orator  of  the 
day.  And  if  he  so  spoke,  he  certainly  so  wrote,  for 
the  great  speeches  of  the  Homans  were  all  written 
compositions.  Montaigne  says  of  Caesar  :  “  I  read  this 
author  with  somewhat  more  reverence  and  respect  than 
is  usually  allowed  to  human  writings,  one  while  con* 
sidering  him  in  his  person,  by  his  actions  and  miracu* 


24 


CJZSAlt. 


lous  greatness,  and  another  in  the  purity  and  inimitable 
polish  of  his  language  and  style,  wherein  he  not  only 
excels  all  other  historians,  as  Cicero  confesses,  but  per- 

adventure  even  Cicero  himself.”  Cicero,  however, 

• 

confesses  nothing  of  the  kind,  and  Montaigne  is  so  far 
wrong.  Caesar  was  a  great  favourite  with  Montaigne, 
who  always  speaks  of  his  hero  with  glowing  enthu¬ 
siasm. 

To  us  who  love  to  make  our  language  clear  by  the 
number  of  words  used,  and  who  in  writing  rarely  give 
ourselves  time  for  condensation,  the  closely- packed 
style  of  Caesar  is  at  first  somewhat  difficult  of  compre¬ 
hension.  It  cannot  be  read  otherwise  than  slowly 
till  the  reader’s  mind  is  trained  by  practice  to  Caesarean 
expressions,  and  then  not  with  rapidity.  Three  or 
four  adjectives,  or  more  probably  participles,  joined  to 
substantives  in  a  sentence,  are  continually  intended 
to  convey  an  amount  of  information  for  which,  with 
us,  three  or  four  other  distinct  sentences  would  be 
used.  It  is  almost  impossible  to  give  the  meaning  of 
Caesar  in  English  without  using  thrice  as  many  words 
as  he  uses.  The  same  may  be  said  of  many  Latin 
writers, — perhaps  of  all ;  so  great  was  the  Roman 
tendency  to  condensation,  and  so  great  is  ours  to 
dilution.  But  with  Caesar,  though  every  word  means 
much,  there  are  often  many  words  in  the  same  sen¬ 
tence,  and  the  reader  is  soon  compelled  to  acknowledge 
that  skipping  is  out  of  the  question,  and  that  quick 
reading  is  undesirable. 

That  which  will  most  strike  the  ordinary  English  . 
reader  in  the  narrative  of  Caesar  is  the  cruelty  of  the 
Homans, — cruelty  of  which  Caesar  himself  is  guilty  to 


INTRODUCTION. 


25 


a  frightful  extent,  and  of  which  he  never  expresses 
horror.  And  yet  among  his  contemporaries  lie  achieved 
a  character  for  clemency  which  he  has  retained  to  the 
present  day.  In  describing  the  character  of  Caesar, 
without  reference  to  that  of  his  contemporaries,  it  is 
impossible  not  to  declare  him  to  have  been  terribly 
cruel.  From  bloodthirstiness  he  slaughtered  none; 
but  neither  from  tenderness  did  he  spare  any.  All 
was  done  from  policy ;  and  when  policy  seemed  to  him 
to  demand  blood,  he  could,  without  a  scruple, — as  far 
as  we  can  judge,  without  a  pang, — order  the  destruction 
of  human  beings,  having  no  regard  to  number,  sex,  age, 
innocence,  or  helplessness.  Our  only  excuse  for  him 
is  that  he  was  a  Roman,  and  that  Romans  were  indif¬ 
ferent  to  blood.  Suicide  was  with  them  the  common 
mode  of  avoiding  otherwise  inevitable  misfortune,  and 
it  was  natural  that  men  who  made  light  of  their  own 
lives  should  also  make  light  of  the  lives  of  others. 
Of  all  those  with  whose  names  the  reader  will  become 
acquainted  in  the  folloAving  pages,  hardly  one  or  two 
died  in  their  beds.  Caesar  and  Pompey,  the  two 
great  ones,  were  murdered.  Dumnorix,  the  iEduan, 
was  killed  by  Caesar’s  orders.  Yercingetorix,  the  gal- 
lantest  of  the  Gauls,  was  kept  alive  for  years  that  his 
death  might  grace  Caesar’s  Triumph.  Ariovistus,  the 
German,  escaped  from  Caesar,  but  we  hear  soon  after 
of  his  death,  and  that  the  Germans  resented  it.  He 
doubtless  was  killed  by  a  Roman  weapon.  What 
became  of  the  hunted  Ambiorix  we  do  not  know, 
but  his  brother  king  Cativolcus  poisoned  himself  with 
the  juice  of  yew-tree.  Crassus,  the  partner  of  Caesar 
and  Pompey  in  the  first  triumvirate,  was  killed  by 


26 


CMS  A  R. 


the  Parthians.  Young  Crassus,  the  son,  Caesar’s 
officer  in  Gaul,  had  himself  killed  by  his  own  men 
that  he  mi  "lit  not  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  Par- 

O 

tliians,  and  his  head  was  cut  off  and  sent  to  his 
father.  Labienus  fell  at  Munda,  in  the  last  civil 
war  in  Spain.  Quintus  Cicero,  Caesar’s  lieuten¬ 
ant,  and  his  greater  brother,  the  orator,  and  his  son, 
perished  in  the  proscriptions  of  the  second  trium¬ 
virate.  Titurius  and  Cotta  were  slaughtered  with  all 
their  army  by  Ambiorix.  Afranius  was  killed  by 
Caesar’s  soldiers  after  the  last  battle  in  Africa.  Petreiua 
was  hacked  to  pieces  in  amicable  contest  by  King 
Juba.  Varro  indeed  lived  to  be  an  old  man,  and  to 
write  many  books.  Domitius,  who  defended  Mar¬ 
seilles  for  Pompey,  was  killed  in  the  flight  after  Pliar- 
salia.  Trebonius,  who  attacked  Marseilles  by  land, 
was  killed  by  a  son-in-law  of  Cicero  at  Smyrna.  Of 
Decimus  Brutus,  who  attacked  Marseilles  by  sea,  one 
Camillus  cut  off  the  head  and  sent  it  as  a  present  to 
Antony.  Curio,  who  attempted  to  master  the  pro¬ 
vince  of  Africa  on  behalf  of  Caesar,  rushed  amidst  his 
enemy’s  swords  and  was  slaughtered.  King  Juba, 
who  conquered  him,  failing  to  kill  himself,  had  him¬ 
self  killed  by  a  slave.  Attius  Yarns,  who  had  held 
the  province  for  Pompey,  fell  afterwards  at  Munda. 
Marc  Antony,  Caesar’s  great  lieutenant  in  the  Pharsa- 
lian  wars,  stabbed  himself.  Cassius  Longinus,  another 
lieutenant  under  Caesar,  was  drowned.  Scipio,  Pom- 
pey’s  partner  in  greatness  at  Pharsalia,  destroyed  him¬ 
self  in  Africa.  Bibulus,  his  chief  admiral,  pined  to 
death.  Young  Ptolemy,  to  whom  Pompey  fled,  was 
drowned  in  the  Nile.  The  fate  of  his  sister  Cleopatra 


INTRODUCTION. 


27 


is  known  to  all  the  world.  Pharnaces,  Caesar’s  enemy 

in  Asia,  fell  in  battle.  Cato  destroyed  himself  at  Utica. 

«/ 

Pompey’s  eldest  son,  Cnseus,  was  caught  wounded  in 
Spain  and  slaughtered.  Sextus  the  younger  was 
killed  some  years  afterwards  by  one  of  Antony’s  sol¬ 
diers.  Brutus  and  Cassius,  the  two  great  conspirators, 
both  committed  suicide.  But  of  these  two  we  hear 
little  or  nothing  in  the  Commentaries;  nor  of  Augustus 
Caesar,  who  did  contrive  to  live  in  spite  of  all  the 
bloodshed  through  which  he  had  waded  to  the  throne. 
Among  the  whole  number  there  are  not  above  three,  if 
so  many,  who  died  fairly  fighting  in  battle. 

The  above  is  a  list  of  the  names  of  men  of  mark, — 
of  warriors  chiefly,  of  men  who,  with  their  eyes  open, 
knowing  what  was  before  them,  went  out  to  encounter 
danger  for  certain  purposes.  The  bloody  catalogue  is 
so  complete,  so  nearly  comprises  all  whose  names  are 
mentioned,  that  it  strikes  the  reader  with  almost  a 
comic  horror.  But  when  we  come  to  the  slaughter  of 
whole  towns,  the  devastation  of  country  effected  pur¬ 
posely  that  men  and  women  might  starve,  to  the 
abandonment  of  the  old,  the  young,  and  the  tender, 
that  they  might  perish  on  the  hillsides,  to  the  mutila¬ 
tion  of  crowds  of  men,  to  the  burning  of  cities  told  us 
in  a  passing  word,  to  the  drowning  of  many  thousands, 
- — mentioned  as  we  should  mention  the  destruction  of 
a  brood  of  rats, — the  comedy  is  all  over,  and  the  heart 
becomes  sick.  Then  it  is  that  we  remember  that  the 
coming  of  Christ  has  changed  all  things,  and  that  men 
now, — though  terrible  things  have  been  done  sinco 
Christ  came  to  us, — are  not  as  men  were  in  the  days 
of  Caesar. 


I 


CHAPTER  H. 

FIRST  BOOK  OF  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL. — CLESAR  DRIVES  FIRST  THIS 
SWISS  AND  THEN  THE  GERMANS  OUT  OF  GAUL. — B.O.  58. 

It  has  been  remarked  in  the  preceding  chapter 
that  Ccesar  does  not  appear  to  have  received  any 
commission  for  the  subjugation  of  Gaul  when  he  took 
military  charge  of  his  three  provinces.  The  Gauls 
were  still  feared  in  Rome,  and  it  was  his  duty  to  see 
that  they  did  not  make  their  way  over  the  Alps  into 
the  Roman  territory.  It  was  also  his  duty  to  protect 
from  invasion,  and  also  from  rebellion,  that  portion  of 
Gaul  which  had  already  been  constituted  a  Roman 
province,  but  in  which  the  sympathies  of  the  people 
were  still  rather  with  their  old  brethren  than  with 
their  new  masters.  The  experience,  however,  which 
we  have  of  great  and  encroaching  empires  tells  us  how 
probable  it  is  that  the  protection  of  that  which  the 
strong  already  holds  should  lead  to  the  grasping  of 
more,  till  at  last  all  has  been  grasped.  It  is  thus  that 
our  own  empire  in  India  has  grown.  It  was  thus  that, 
the  Spanish  empire  grew  in  America.  It  is  thus  that 
the  empire  of  the  United  States  is  now  growing.  It 
was  thus  that  Prussia,  driven,  as  we  all  remember,  by 


CAESARS  PROBABLE  INTENTIONS. 


29 


the  necessity  of  self-preservation,  took  Nassau  the  other 
dav,  and  Hanover  and  Holstein  and  Hesse.  It  was 
thus  that  the  wolf  claimed  all  the  river,  not  being  able 
to  endure  the  encroaching  lamb.  The  humane  reader 
of  history  execrates,  as  he  reads,  the  cruel,  all-absorb¬ 
ing,  ravenous  wolf.  But  the  philosophical  reader  per¬ 
ceives  that  in  this  way,  and  in  no  other,  is  civilisation 
carried  into  distant  lands.  The  wolf,  though  he  be 
a  ravenous  wolf,  brings  with  him  energy  and  know¬ 
ledge. 

What  may  have  been  Caesar’s  own  aspirations  in 
regard  to  Gaul,  when  the  government  of  the  provinces 
was  confided  to  him,  we  have  no  means  of  knowing. 
We  may  surmise, — indeed  we  feel  that  we  know, — that 
he  had  a  project  in  hand  much  greater  to  him,  in  his 
view  of  its  result,  than  could  be  the  adding  of  any 
new  province  to  the  Republic,  let  the  territory  added 
be  as  wide  as  all  Gaul.  He  had  seen  enough  ol 
Roman  politics  to  know  that  real  power  in  Rome  coulc 
only  belong  to  a  master  of  legions.  Both  Marius  anc1 
Sulla  had  prevailed  in  the  city  by  means  of  the  armies 
which  they  had  levied  as  the  trusted  generals  of  the 
Republic.  Pompey  had  had  his  army  trained  to 
conquest  in  the  East,  and  it  had  been  expected  that 
he  also  would  use  it  to  the  same  end.  He  had  been 
magnanimous,  or  half-hearted,  or  imprudent,  as  critics 
of  liis  conduct  might  choose  to  judge  him  then  and 
may  choose  to  judge  him  now,  and  on  reaching  Italy 
from  the  East  had  disbanded  his  legions.  As  a  con¬ 
sequence,  he  was  at  that  moment,  when  Caesar  was 
looking  out  into  the  future  and  preparing  his  own 


30 


TI1E  WAR  IN  OAUL.— FIRST  BOOK. 


career,  fain  to  seek  some  influence  in  the  city  by  join¬ 
ing  himself  in  a  secret  compact  with  Caesar,  his  natural 
enemy,  and  with  Crassus.  Caesar,  seeing  all  this, 
knowing  how  Marius  and  Sulla  had  succeeded  and  had 
failed,  seeing  what  had  come  of  the  magnanimity  of 
Pompey — resolved  no  doubt  that,  whatever  might  he 
the  wars  in  which  they  should  he  trained,  he  would 
have  trained  legions  at  his  command.  When,  there¬ 
fore,  he  first  found  a  cause  for  war,  he  was  ready  for 
war.  He  had  not  been  long  proconsul  before  there 
came  a  wicked  lamb  and  drank  at  his  stream. 

In  describing  to  us  the  way  in  which  he  conquered 
lamb  after  lamb  throughout  the  whole  country  which 
he  calls  Gallia,  he  tells  us  almost  nothing  of  himself. 
Of  his  own  political  ideas,  of  his  own  ambition,  even 
of  his  doings  in  Italy  through  those  winter  months 
which  he  generally  passed  on  the  Roman  side  of  the 
Alps,  having  left  his  army  in  winter  quarters  under 
his  lieutenants,  he  says  but  a  very  few  words.  His 
record  is  simply  the  record  of  the  campaigns;  and 
although  he  now  and  then  speaks  of  the  dignity  of 
the  Republic,  he  hardly  ever  so  far  digresses  from  the 
narrative  as  to  give  to  the  reader  any  idea  of  the 
motives  by  which  he  is  actuated.  Once  in  these  seven 
memoirs  of  seven  years’  battling  in  Gaul,  and  once 
only,  does  he  refer  to  a  motive  absolutely  personal  to 
himself.  When  he  succeeded  in  slaughtering  a  fourth 
of  the  emigrating  Swiss,  which  was  his  first  military 
success  in  Gaul,  he  tells  us  that  he  had  then  revenged 
an  injury  to  himself  as  well  as  an  injury  to  the  Re¬ 
public,  because  the  grandfather  of  his  father-in-law 


THE  MANNER  OF  CAESAR’S  NARRATIVE.  31 


had  in  former  wars  been  killed  by  the  very  tribe  which 
he  had  just  destroyed  ! 

It  is  to  be  observed,  also,  that  he  does  not  intention¬ 
ally  speak  in  the  first  person,  and  that  when  he  does  so 
it  is  in  some  passage  of  no  moment,  in  which  the  person¬ 
ality  is  accidental  and  altogether  trivial.  He  does  not 
speak  of  “  I  ”  and  “  me,”  but  of  Caesar,  at  though  he, 
Caesar,  who  wrote  the  Commentary,  Avert,  not  the 
Caesar  of  whom  he  is  writing.  Hot  unfrequently  ho 
speaks  strongly  in  praise  of  himself ;  but  as  there  is 
no  humility  in  his  tone,  so  also  is  there  no  pride,  even 
when  he  praises  himself.  He  never  seems  to  boast, 
though  he  tells  us  of  his  own  exploits  as  he  does  of  those 
of  his  generals  and  centurions.  Without  any  diffi¬ 
dence  he  informs  us  now  and  again  how,  at  the  end 
of  this  or  that  campaign,  a  “  supplication,”  or  public 
festival  and  thanksgiving  for  his  victories,  was  decreed 
in  Home,  on  the  hearing  of  the  news, — to  last  for  fifteen 
or  twenty  days,  as  the  case  might  be. 

Of  his  difficulties  at  home, — the  political  difficulties 
with  which  he  had  to  contend, — he  says  never  a  Avord. 
And  yet  at  times  they  must  have  been  Arery  harassing. 
We  hear  from  other  sources  that  during  these  Avars  in 
Gaul  his  conduct  Avas  Auolently  reprobated  in  Home, 
in  that  he  had,  with  the  utmost  cruelty,  attacked  and 
crushed  states  supposed  to  be  in  amity  with  Rome,  and 
that  it  Avas  once  even  proposed  to  give  him  up  to  the 
enemy  as  a  punishment  for  grievous  treachery  to  the 
enemy.  Had  it  been  so  resolved  by  the  Roman  Senate, 
— had  such  a  laAV  been  enacted, — the  poAver  to  carry 
out  the  laAV  would  have  been  wanted.  It  Avas  easier 


32 


THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.—xTlRST  BOO a. 


to  grant  a  “  supplication”  for  twenty  days  than  to  stop 
his  career  after  his  legions  had  come  to  know  him. 

Nor  is  there  very  much  said  by  Caesar  of  his  strategic 
difficulties ;  though  now  and  then,  especially  when 
his  ships  are  being  knocked  about  on  the  British 
coast,  and  again  when  the  iron  of  his  heel  has  so 
bruised  the  Gauls  that  they  all  turn  against  him  in 
one  body  under  V ereingetorix,  the  reader  is  allowed  to 
see  that  he  is  pressed  hard  enough.  But  it  is  his  rule 
to  tell  the  thing  he  means  to  do,  the  way  he  does  it, 
and  the  completeness  of  the  result,  in  the  fewest  pos¬ 
sible  words.  If  any  student  of  the  literature  of  battles 
would  read  first  Caesar’s  seven  books  of  the  Gallic  War, 
and  then  Mr  ICinglake’s  first  four  volumes  of  the 
‘  Invasion  of  the  Crimea,’  he  would  be  able  to  com¬ 
pare  two  most  wonderful  examples  of  the  dexterous 
use  of  words,  in  the  former  of  which  the  narrative  is 
told  with  the  utmost  possible  brevity,  and  in  the  latter 
with  almost  the  utmost  possible  prolixity.  And  yet 
each  narrative  is  equally  clear,  and  each  equally  dis¬ 
tinguished  by  so  excellent  &n  arrangement  of  words, 
that  the  reader  is  forced  to  acknowledge  that  the  story 
is  told  to  him  by  a  great  master. 

In  praising  others, — his  lieutenants,  his  soldiers,  and 
occasionally  his  enemies, — Caesar  is  often  enthusiastic, 
though  the  praise  is  conferred  by  a  word  or  two, — is 
given,  perhaps,  simply  in  an  epithet  added  on  for  that 
purpose  to  a  sentence  planned  with  a  wholly  different 
purpose.  Of  blame  he  is  very  sparing;  so  much  so, 
that  it  almost  seems  that  he  looked  upon  certain 
imperfections,  in  regard  even  to  faith  as  well  as  valour 


THE  MANNER  OF  CjESAR'S  NARRATIVE.  33 


or  prudence,  as  necessary  to  humanity,  and  pardonable 
because  of  their  necessity.  He  can  tell  of  the  absolute 
destruction  of  a  legion  through  the  folly  and  perhaps 
cowardice  of  one  of  his  lieutenants,  without  heaping  a 
word  of  reproach  on  the  name  of  the  unfortunate.  He 
can  relate  how  a  much-favoured  tribe  fell  off  from  their 
faith  again  and  again  without  expressing  anger  at  their 
faithlessness,  and  can  explain  how  they  were, — hardly 
forgiven,  but  received  again  as  friends, — because  it 
suited  him  so  to  treat  them.  But  again  he  can  tell  us, 
without  apparently  a  quiver  of  the  pen,  how  he  could 
devote  to  destruction  a  city  with  all  its  women  and  all 
its  children,  so  that  other  cities  might  know  what 
would  come  to  them  if  they  did  not  yield  and  obey, 
and  become  vassals  to  the  godlike  hero  in  whose 
hands  Providence  had  placed  their  lives  and  their 
possessions. 

It  appears  that  Caesar  never  failed  to  believe  in 
himself.  He  is  far  too  simple  in  his  language,  and  too 
conscious  of  his  own  personal  dignity,  to  assert  that 
he  has  never  been  worsted.  But  his  very  simplicity 
seems  to  convey  the  assurance  that  such  cannot  ulti¬ 
mately  be  the  result  of  any  campaign  in  which  he  is 
engaged.  He  seems  to  imply  that  victory  attends  him 
so  certainly  that  it  would  be  futile  in  any  case  to  dis¬ 
cuss  its  probability.  He  feared  no  one,  and  was  there¬ 
fore  the  cause  of  awe  to  others.  He  could  face  his 
own  legions  when  they  would  not  obey  his  call  to 
arms,  and  reduce  them  to  obedience  by  a  word. 
Lucan,  understanding  his  character  well,  says  of  him 
that  “  he  deserved  to  be  feared,  for  he  feared  nothing 

a.  o.  vol.  iv  ° 


34 


THE  WAR  IN  GA  UL.— FIRST  BOOK. 


“  meruitque  timeri  Nil  metuens.”  He  writes  of  liimself 
as  we  might  imagine  some  god  would  write  who  knew 
that  his  divine  purpose  must  of  course  prevail,  and 
who  would  therefore  never  he  in  the  way  of  entertain¬ 
ing  a  doubt.  With  Caesar  there  is  always  this  godlike 
simplicity,  which  makes  his  “Veni,  vidi,  vici,”  the 
natural  expression  of  his  mind  as  to  his  own  mode  of 
action.  The  same  thing  is  felt  in  the  very  numerous 
but  very  brief  records  of  the  punishments  which  he  in¬ 
flicted.  Cities  are  left  desolate,  as  it  were  with  a  wave 
of  his  hand,  but  he  hardly  deigns  to  say  that  his  own 
hand  has  even  been  waved.  He  tells  us  of  one  Acco 
who  had  opposed  him,  that,  “Graviore  sententia  pro- 
nunciata,” — as  though  there  had  been  some  jury  to 
pronounce  this  severe  sentence,  which  was  in  fact  pro¬ 
nounced  only  by  himself,  Caesar, — he  inflicted  punish¬ 
ment  on  him  “more  majorum.”  We  learn  from  other 
sources  that  this  punishment  consisted  in  being  strip¬ 
ped  naked,  confined  by  the  neck  in  a  cleft  stick,  and 
then  being  flogged  to  death.  In  the  next  words,  hav¬ 
ing  told  us  in  half  a  sentence  that  he  had  made  the 
country  too  hot  to  hold  the  fugitive  accomplices  of  the 
tortured  chief,  he  passes  on  into  Italy  with  the  majes¬ 
tic  step  of  one  much  too  great  to  dwell  long  on  these 
small  but  disagreeable  details.  And  we  feel  that  he  is 
too  great. 

It  has  been  already  said  that  the  great  proconsular 
wolf  was  not  long  in  hearing  that  a  lamb  had  come 
down  to  drink  of  his  stream.  The  Helvetii,  or  Swiss, 
as  we  call  them, — those  tribes  which  lived  on  the  Lake 
Leman,  and  among  the  hills  and  valleys  to  the  north 


THE  EMIGRATION  OF  THE  HELVE  TIL  35 


of  the  lake, — had  made  up  their  minds  that  they  were 
inhabiting  hut  a  poor  sort  of  country,  and  that  they 
might  considerably  better  themselves  by  leaving  their 
mountains  and  going  out  into  some  part  of  Gaul,  in 
which  they  might  find  themselves  stronger  than  the 
existing  tribes,  and  might  take  possession  of  the  fat  of 
the  land.  In  doing  so,  their  easiest  way  out  of  their 
own  country  would  lie  by  the  Rhone,  where  it  now 
runs  through  Geneva  into  France.  But  in  taking  this 
route  the  Swiss  would  be  obliged  to  pass  over  a  corner 
of  the  Roman  province.  Here  was  a  case  of  the  lamb 
troubling  the  waters  with  a  vengeance.  When  this 
was  told  to  Caesar, — that  these  Swiss  intended,  “  facere 
iter  per  Provinciam  nostram  ” — “  to  do  their  travelling 
through  our  Province,” — he  hurried  over  the  Alps  into 
Gaul,  and  came  to  Geneva  as  fast  as  he  could  travel. 

He  begins  his  first  book  by  a  geographical  definition 
of  Gaul,  which  no  doubt  was  hardly  accurate,  but 
which  gives  us  a  singularly  clear  idea  of  that  which 
Caesar  desired  to  convey.  In  speaking  of  Gallia  he 
intends  to  signify  the  whole  country  from  the  outflow 
of  the  Rhine  into  the  ocean  down  to  the  Pyrenees, 
and  then  eastward  to  the  Rhone,  to  the  Swiss  moun¬ 
tains,  and  the  borders  of  the  Roman  Province.  This 
fie  divides  into  three  parts,  telling  us  that  the  Belgians 
inhabited  the  part  north  of  the  Seine  and  Marne,  the 
people  of  Aquitania  the  part  south  of  the  Garonne,  and 
the  Gauls  or  Celts,  the  intermediate  territory.  Having 
so  far  described  the  scene  of  his  action,  he  rushes  off 
at  once  to  the  dreadful  sin  of  the  Swiss  emigrants  in 
desiring  to  pass  through  “  our  Province.” 


36 


THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— FIRST  BOOR. 


He  has  but  one  legion  in  Further  Gaul, — that  is, 
in  the  Roman  province  on  the  further  side  of  tho 
Alps  from  Rome  ;  and  therefore,  when  ambassadors 
come  to  him  from  the  Swiss,  asking  permission  to 
go  through  the  corner  of  land,  and  promising  that 
they  will  do  no  harm  in  their  passage,  he  tem¬ 
porises  with  them.  He  can’t  give  them  an  answer 
just  then,  but  must  think  of  it.  They  must  come 
back  to  him  by  a  certain  day, — when  he  will  have 
more  soldiers  ready.  Of  course  he  refuses.  The 
Swiss  make  some  slight  attempt,  but  soon  give  that 
matter  up  in  despair.  There  is  another  way  by  which 
they  can  get  out  of  their  mountains, — through  the 
territory  of  a  people  called  Sequani;  and  for  doing  this 
they  obtain  leave.  But  Caesar  knows  how  injurious 
the  Swiss  lambs  will  be  to  him  and  his  wolves,  should 
they  succeed  in  getting  round  to  the  back  of  his  Pro¬ 
vince, — that  Roman  Province  which  left  the  name  of 
Provence  in  modern  France  till  France  refused  to  be 
divided  any  longer  into  provinces.  And  he  is,  more¬ 
over,  invited  by  certain  friends  of  the  Roman  Republic, 
called  the  iEdui,  to  come  and  stop  these  rough  Swiss 
travellers.  He  is  always  willing  to  help  the  iEdui, 
although  these  AEdui  are  a  fickle,  inconstant  people, — 
and  he  is,  above  all  things,  willing  to  get  to  war.  So 
he  comes  upon  the  rear  of  the  Swiss  when  three 
portions  of  the  people  have  passed  the  river  Arar 
(Saone),  and  one  portion  is  still  behind.  This  hinder- 
most  tribe, — for  the  wretches  were  all  of  one  tribe  or 
mountain  canton, — he  sets  upon  and  utterly  destroys ; 
and  on  this  occasion  congratulates  himself  on  having 


THE  EMIGRATION  OF  THE  HELVE TII.  37 


avenged  liimself  upon  the  slayers  of  the  grandfather 
of  his  father-in-law. 

There  can  he  nothing  more  remarkable  in  history 
than  this  story  of  the  attempted  emigration  of  the 
Helvetii,  which  Caesar  tells  us  without  the  expression 
of  any  wonder.  The  whole  people  made  up  their 
minds  that,  as  their  borders  were  narrow,  their  num¬ 
bers  increasing,  and  their  courage  good,  they  would  go 
forth, — men,  women,  and  children, — and  seek  other 
homes.  We  read  constantly  of  the  emigrations  of 
people, — of  the  Northmen  from  the  north  covering  the 
southern  plains,  of  Danes  and  Jutes  entering  Britain, 
of  men  from  Scandinavia  coming  down  across  the 
Rhine,  and  the  like.  We  know  that  after  this  fashion 
the  world  has  become  peopled.  But  we  picture  to 
ourselves  generally  a  concourse  of  warriors  going  forth 
and  leaving  behind  them  homes  and  friends,  to  whom 
they  may  or  may  not  return.  With  these  Swiss 
wanderers  there  was  to  be  no  return.  All  that  they 
could  not  take  with  them  they  destroyed,  burning 
their  houses,  and  burning  even  their  corn,  so  that 
there  should  be  no  means  of  turning  their  steps  back¬ 
ward.  They  do  make  considerable  progress,  getting 
as  far  into  France  as  Autun, — three-fourths  of  them 
at  least  getting  so  far ;  but  near  this  they  are  brought 
to  an  engagement  by  Caesar,  who  outgenerals  them 
on  a  hill.  The  prestige  of  the  Romans  had  not  as  yet 
established  itself  in  these  parts,  and  the  Swiss  nearly 
have  the  best  of  it.  Caesar  owns,  as  he  does  not  own 
again  above  once  or  twice,  that  the  battle  between 
them  was  very  long,  and  for  long  very  doubtful.  But 


38 


TIIE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— FIRST  BOOK. 


at  last  the  poor  Helvetii  are  driven  in  slaughter. 
Caesar,  however,  is  not  content  that  they  should 
simply  fly.  He  forces  them  back  upon  their  old 
territory, — upon  their  burnt  houses  and  devastated 
fields, — lest  certain  Germans  should  come  and  live 
there,  and  make  themselves  disagreeable.  And  they 
go  back ; — so  many,  at  least,  go  back  as  are  not  slain  in 
the  adventure.  With  great  attempt  at  accuracy,  Caesar 
tells  us  that  368,000  human  beings  went  out  on  the 
expedition,  and  that  110,000,  or  less  than  a  third, 
found  their  way  back.  Of  those  that  perished,  many 
hecatombs  had  been  offered  up  to  the  shade  of  his 
father-in-law’ s  grandfath  er. 

Hereupon  the  Gauls  begin  to  see  how  great  a  man 
is  Caesar.  He  tells  us  that  no  sooner  was  that  war 
with  the  Swiss  finished  than  nearly  all  the  tribes  of 
Gallia  send  to  congratulate  him.  And  one  special 
tribe,  those  iEdui, — of  whom  we  hear  a  great  deal, 
and  whom  we  never  like  because  they  are  thoroughly 
anti-Gallican  in  all  their  doings  till  they  think  that 
Caesar  is  really  in  trouble,  and  then  they  turn  upon 
him, — have  to  beg  of  him  a  great  favour.  Two  tribes, 
— the  iEdui,  whose  name  seems  to  have  left  no  trace 
in  France,  and  the  Arverni,  whom  we  still  know  in 
Auvergne, — have  been  long  contending  for  the  upper 
hand;  whereupon  the  Arverni  and  their  friends  the 
Sequani  have  called  in  the  assistance  of  certain  Ger¬ 
mans  from  across  the  Rhine.  It  went  badly  then 
with  the  iEdui.  And  now  one  of  their  kings,  named 
Hivitiacus,  implores  the  help  of  Caesar.  Would  Caesar 
be  kind  enough  to  expel  these  horrid  Germans,  and 


A  RIO  VIST  US  AND  HIS  GERMANS. 


39 


get  back  the  hostages,  and  free  them  from  a  burden¬ 
some  dominion,  and  put  things  a  little  to  rights  1 
And,  indeed,  not  only  were  the  iEdui  suffering  from 
these  Germans,  and  their  king,  Ariovistus ;  it  is  going 
still  worse  with  the  Sequani,  who  had  called  them  in. 
In  fact,  Ariovistus  was  an  intolerable  nuisance  to  that 
eastern  portion  of  Gaul.  Would  Caesar  be  kind 
enough  to  drive  him  out  1  Caesar  consents,  and  then 
we  are  made  to  think  of  another  little  fable, — of  the 
prayer  which  the  horse  made  to  the  man  for  assistance 
in  his  contest  with  the  stag,  and  of  the  manner  in 
which  the  man  got  upon  the  horse,  and  never  got 
down  again.  Caesar  was  not  slow  to  mount,  and  when 
once  in  the  saddle,  certainly  did  not  mean  to  leave  it. 

Caesar  tells  us  his  reasons  for  undertaking  this  com¬ 
mission.  The  A£dui  had  often  been  called  “  brothers  ” 
and  “  cousins  ”  by  the  Roman  Senate ;  and  it  was  not 
fitting  that  men  who  had  been  so  honoured  should  be 
domineered  over  by  Germans.  And  then,  unless  these 
marauding  Germans  could  be  stopped,  they  would  fall 
into  the  habit  of  coming  across  the  Rhine,  and  at 
last  might  get  into  the  Province,  and  by  that  route 
into  Italy  itself.  And  Ariovistus  himself  was  per¬ 
sonally  so  arrogant  a  man  that  the  thing  must  be  made 
to  cease.  So  Csesar  sends  ambassadors  to  Ariovistus, 
and  invites  the  barbarian  to  a  meeting.  The  barbarian 
will  not  come  to  the  meeting.  If  he  wanted  to  see 
the  Roman,  he  would  go  to  the  Roman  :  if  the  Roman 
wants  to  see  him,  the  Roman  may  come  to  him.  Such 
is  the  reply  of  Ariovistus.  Ambassadors  pass  between 
them,  and  there  is  a  good  deal  of  argument,  in  which 


40 


THE  WAR  IN  OA  UL.— FIRST  BOOK. 


the  barbarian  has  the  best  of  it.  Caesar,  with  his  god¬ 
like  simplicity,  scorns  not  to  give  the  barbarian  the 
benefit  of  his  logic.  Ariovistus  reminds  Caesar  that 
the  Romans  have  been  in  the  habit  of  governing  the 
tribes  conquered  by  them  after  their  fashion,  without 
interference  from  him,  Ariovistus ;  and  that  the  Ger¬ 
mans  claim  and  mean  to  exercise  the  same  right.  He 
goes  on  to  say  that  he  is  willing  enough  to  live  in 
amity  with  the  Romans ;  but  will  Caesar  be  kind 
enough  to  remember  that  the  Germans  are  a  people 
unconquered  in  war,  trained  to  the  use  of  arms, 
and  how  hardy  he  might  judge  when  he  was  told 
that  for  fourteen  years  they  had  not  slept  under  a  roof  1 
In  the  mean  time  other  Gauls  wrere  complaining,  and 
begging  for  assistance.  The  Treviri,  people  of  the 
country  where  Treves  now  stands,  are  being  harassed 
by  the  terrible  yellow-haired  Suevi,  who  at  this  time 
seem  to  have  possessed  nearly  the  whole  of  Prussia  as 
it  now  exists  on  the  further  side  of  the  Rhine,  and 
who  had  the  same  desire  to  come  westward  that  the 
Prussians  have  evinced  since.  And  a  people  called 
the  Harudes,  from  the  Danube,  are  also  harassing 
the  poor  iEdui.  Caesar,  looking  at  these  things,  sees 
that  unless  he  is  quick,  the  northern  and  southern 
Germans  may  join  their  forces.  He  gets  together  his 
commissariat,  and  flies  at  Ariovistus  very  quickly. 

Throughout  all  his  campaigns,  Caesar,  as  did  Hapo- 
leon  afterwards,  effected  everything  by  celerity.  He 
preaches  to  us  no  sermon  on  the  subject,  favours  us 
with  no  disquisition  as  to  the  value  of  despatch  in  war, 
but  constantly  tells  us  that  he  moved  all  his  army 


ARIOVISTUS  AND  HIS  GERMANS. 


41 


“inagnis  itineribus” — by  very  rapid  marches;  that  he 
went  on  with  his  work  night  and  day,  and  took  pre¬ 
cautions  “magno  opere,” — with  much  labour  and  all 
his  care, — to  be  beforehand  with  the  enemy.  In  this 
instance  Ariovistus  tries  to  reach  a  certain  town  of  the 
poor  Sequani,  then  called  Vesontio,  now  known  to  us 
as  Besantjon, — the  same  name,  but  very  much  altered. 
It  consisted  of  a  hill,  or  natural  fortress,  almost  sur¬ 
rounded  by  a  river,  or  natural  fosse.  There  is  nothing, 
says  Caesar,  so  useful  in  a  war  as  the  possession  of  a 
place  thus  naturally  strong.  Therefore  he  hurries  on 
and  gets  before  Ariovistus,  and  occupies  the  town. 
The  reader  already  begins  to  feel  that  Caesar  is  des¬ 
tined  to  divine  success.  The  reader  indeed  knows 
that  beforehand,  and  expects  nothing  worse  for  Caesar 
than  hairbreadth  escapes.  But  the  Romans  them 
selves  had  not  as  yet  the  same  confidence  in  him. 
Tidings  are  brought  to  him  at  Vesontio  that  his  men 
are  terribly  afraid  of  the  Germans.  And  so,  no  doubt, 
they  were.  These  Romans,  though  by  the  art  of  war 
they  had  been  made  fine  soldiers, — though  they  had 
been  trained  in  the  Eastern  conquests  and  the  Punic 
wars,  and  invasions  of  all  nations  around  them, — wrere 
nevertheless,  up  to  this  day,  greatly  afraid  even  of  the 
Gauls.  The  coming  of  the  Gauls  into  Italy  had  been 
a  source  of  terror  to  them  ever  since  the  days  of 
Brennus.  And  the  Germans  were  worse  than  the 
Gauls.  The  boast  made  by  Ariovistus  that  his  men 
never  slept  beneath  a  roof  was  not  vain  or  useless. 
They  were  a  horrid,  hirsute,  yellow-haired  people,  the 
flashing  aspect  of  whose  eyes  could  hardly  be  endured 


42 


THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— FIRST  BOOK. 


by  an  Italian.  The  fear  is  so  great  that  the  soldiers 
“sometimes  could  not  refrain  even  from  tears;” — 
“  neque  interdum  laerimas  tenere  poterant.”  When 
we  remember  what  these  men  became  after  they  had 
been  a  while  with  Caesar,  their  blubbering  awe  of  the 
Germans  strikes  us  as  almost  comic.  And  we  are  re¬ 
minded  that  the  Italians  of  those  days  were,  as  they  are 
now,  more  prone  to  show  the  outward  signs  of  emotion 
than  is  thought  to  be  decorous  with  men  in  more  northern 
climes.  We  can  hardly  realise  the  idea  of  soldiers  cry 
ing  from  fear.  Caesar  is  told  by  his  centurions  that  so 
great  is  this  feeling,  that  the  men  will  probably  refuse 
to  take  up  their  arms  when  called  upon  to  go  out  and 
fight ;  whereupon  he  makes  a  speech  to  all  his  cap¬ 
tains  and  lieutenants,  full  of  boasting,  full  of  scorn,  full, 
no  doubt,  of  falsehood,  but  using  a  bit  of  truth  when¬ 
ever  the  truth  could  aid  him.  We  know  that  among 
other  great  gifts  Caesar  had  the  gift  of  persuasion. 
From  his  tongue,  also,  as  from  Hestor’s,  could  flow 
“  words  sweeter  than  honey,” — or  sharper  than  steel.  At 
any  rate,  if  others  will  not  follow  him,  his  tenth  legion, 
he  knows,  will  be  true  to  him.  He  will  go  forth  with 
that  one  legion, — if  necessary,  with  that  legion  of  true 
soldiers,  and  with  no  others.  Though  he  had  been  at 
his  work  but  a  short  time,  he  already  had  his  picked 
men,  his  guards,  his  favourite  regiments,  his  tenth 
legion  ;  and  he  knew  well  how  to  use  their  superiority 
and  valour  for  the  creation  of  those  virtues  in  others. 

Then  Ariovistus  sends  ambassadors,  and  declares 
that  he  now  is  willing  to  meet  Caesar.  Let  them  meet 
on  a  certain  plain,  each  bringing  only  his  cavalry 


A  RIO  VI ST  US  AND  HIS  GERMANS. 


43 


guard.  Ariovistus  suggests  tliat  foot- soldiers  might 
he  dangerous,  knowing  that  Caesar’s  foot-soldiers  would 
bo  Romans,  and  that  his  cavalry  are  Gauls.  Caesar 
agrees,  but  takes  men  out  of  his  own  tenth  legion, 
mounted  on  the  horses  of  the  less-trusted  allies.  The 
accounts  of  these  meetings,  and  the  arguments  which 
we  are  told  are  used  on  this  and  that  side,  are  very 
interesting.  We  are  bound  to  remember  that  Caesar 
is  telling  the  story  for  both  sides,  but  we  feel  that  he 
tries  to  tell  it  fairly.  Ariovistus  had  very  little  to  say 
to  Caesar’s  demands,  but  a  great  deal  to  say  about  his 
own  exploits.  The  meeting,  however,  was  broken  up 
by  an  attack  made  by  the  Germans  on  Caesar’s  mounted 
guard,  and  Caesar  retires, — not,  however,  before  he 
has  explained  to  Ariovistus  his  grand  idea  of  the  pro¬ 
tection  due  by  Rome  to  her  allies.  Then  Ariovistus 
proposes  another  meeting,  which  Caesar  declines  to 
attend,  sending,  however,  certain  ambassadors.  Ario¬ 
vistus  at  once  throws  the  ambassadors  into  chains,  and 
then  there  is  nothing  for  it  but  a  fight. 

The  details  of  all  these  battles  cannot  be  given 
within  our  short  limits,  and  there  is  nothing  special 
in  this  battle  to  tempt  us  to  dwell  upon  it.  Caesar 
describes  to  us  the  way  in  which  the  German  cavalry 
and  infantry  fought  together,  the  footmen  advancing 
from  amidst  the  horsemen,  and  then  returning  for 
protection.  His  own  men  fight  well,  and  the  Ger 
mans,  in  spite  of  their  flashing  eyes,  are  driven  head 
long  in  a  rout  back  to  the  Rhine.  Ariovistus  succeeds 
in  getting  over  the  river  and  saving  himself,  but  he 
has  to  leave  his  two  daughters  behind,  and  his  two 


u 


THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— FIRST  BOOK . 


wives.  The  two  wives  and  one  of  the  daughters  are 
killed ;  the  other  daughter  is  taken  prisoner.  Caesar  had 
sent  as  one  of  his  ambassadors  to  the  German  a  certain 
dear  friend  of  his,  who,  as  we  heard  before,  was,  with 
his  comrade,  at  once  subjected  to  chains.  In  the  flight 
this  ambassador  is  recovered.  “  Which  thing,  indeed, 
gave  Caesar  not  less  satisfaction  than  the  victory  itself, 
— in  that  he  saw  one  of  the  honestest  men  of  the  Pro¬ 
vince  of  Gaul,  his  own  familiar  friend  and  guest, 
rescued  from  the  hands  of  his  enemies  and  restored  to 
him.  Nor.  did  Fortune  diminish  this  gratification  *>y 
any  calamity  inflicted  on  the  man.  Thrice,  as  he  him¬ 
self  told  the  tale,  had  it  been  decided  by  lot  in  his 
own  presence  whether  he  should  then  be  burned  alive 
or  reserved  for  another  time.”  So  Caesar  tells  the  story, 
and  we  like  him  for  his  enthusiasm,  and  are  glad  to  hear 
that  the  comrade  ambassador  also  is  brought  back. 

The  yellow-haired  Suevi,  when  they  hear  of  all 
this,  desist  from  their  invasion  on  the  lower  Phine, 
and  hurry  back  into  their  own  country,  not  without 
misfortunes  on  the  road.  So  great  already  is  Caesar’s 
name,  that  tribes,  acting  as  it  were  on  his  side,  dare  to 
attack  even  the  Suevi.  Then,  in  his  “Veni,  vidi, 
vici”  style,  he  tells  us  that,  having  in  one  summei 
finished  off  two  wars,  he  is  able  to  put  his  army  into 
Winter  quarters  even  before  the  necessary  time,  so  that 
he  himself  may  go  into  his  other  Gaul  across  the  Alps, 
— “  ad  conventus  agendos,” —  to  hold  some  kind  of 
session  or  assizes  for  the  government  of  his  province, 
and  especially  to  collect  more  soldiers. 


CHAPTER  III. 


SECOND  BOOK  OF  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL. — CJESAE  SUBDUES 
THE  BELGIAN  TRIBES. — B.C.  57. 

The  man  liad  got  on  tlie  horse’s  hack,  hut  the  horse  had 
various  disagreeable  enemies  in  attacking  whom  the 
man  might  he  very  useful,  and  the  horse  was  therefore 
not  as  yet  anxious  to  unseat  his  rider.  Would  Cresar 
he  so  good  as  to  go  and  conquer  the  P>elgian  tribes  1 
Caesar  is  not  slow  in  finding  reasons  for  so  doing. 
The  Belgians  are  conspiring  together  against  him. 
They  think  that  as  all  Gaul  has  been  reduced, — or 
“pacified,”  as  Caesar  calls  it, — the  Roman  conqueror  will 
certainly  bring  his  valour  to  hear  upon  them,  and  that 
they  had  better  be  ready.  Caesar  suggests  that  it 
would  no  doubt  be  felt  by  them  as  a  great  grievance 
that  a  Roman  army  should  remain  all  the  winter  so 
near  to  them.  In  this  way,  and  governed  by  these 
considerations,  the  Belgian  lambs  disturb  the  stream 
very  sadly,  and  the  wolf  has  to  look  to  it.  He  collects 
two  more  legions,  and,  as  soon  as  the  earth  brings 
forth  the  food  necessary  for  his  increased  number  of 
men  and  horses,  he  hurries  off  against  these  Belgian 
tribes  of  Northern  Gallia.  Of  these,  one  tribe,  the 


46  TIIE  WAR  IN  GAUL.- -SECOND  BOOK. 


Remi,  immediately  send  word  to  him  that  they  are 
not  wicked  lambs  like  the  others ;  they  have  not 
touched  the  waters.  All  the  other  Belgians,  say  the 
Remi,  and  with  them  a  parcel  of  Germans,  are  in  a  con- 
sp  .racy  together.  Even  their  very  next-door  neighbours, 
their  brothers  and  cousins,  the  Suessiones,  are  wicked ; 
but  they,  the  Remi,  have  steadily  refused  even  to  sniff 
at  the  stream,  which  they  acknowledge  to  be  the 
exclusive  property  of  the  good  wolf.  Would  the  wolf 
be  kind  enough  to  come  and  take  possession  of  them 
and  all  their  belongings,  and  allow  them  to  be  the 
humblest  of  his  friends  1  We  come  to  hate  these  Remi, 
as  we  do  the  AEdui ;  but  they  are  wise  in  their  genera¬ 
tion,  and  escape  much  of  the  starvation  and  massa¬ 
cring  and  utter  ruin  to  which  the  other  tribes  are  sub¬ 
jected.  Among  almost  all  these  so-called  Belgian  tribes 
we  find  the  modern  names  which  are  familiar  to  us. 
Rheims  is  in  the  old  country  of  the  Remi,  Soissons  in 
that  of  the  Suessiones.  Beauvais  represents  the  Bel¬ 
lo  vaci,  Amiens  the  Ambiani,  Arras  the  Atrebates, 
Treves  the  Treviri, — as  has  been  pointed  out  before. 
Silva  Arduenna  is,  of  course,  the  Forest  of  Ardennes. 

The  campaign  is  commenced  by  an  attack  made  by  the 
other  Belgians  on  those  unnatural  Remi  who  have  gone 
over  to  the  Romans.  There  is  a  town  of  theirs,  Bibrax, 
now  known,  or  rather  not  known,  ns  Bievre,  and  here 
the  Remi  are  besieged  by  their  brethren.  When 
Bibrax  is  on  the  point  of  falling, — and  we  can  imagine 
what  would  then  have  been  the  condition  of  the  towns¬ 
men, — they  send  to  Caesar,  who  is  only  eight  miles 
distant.  Unless  Caesar  will  help,  they  cannot  endure 


CAESAR  REDUCES  THE  BELGIAN  TRIBES.  47 


any  longer  such  onslaught  as  is  made  on  them.  Caesar, 
having  hided  his  time,  of  course  sends  help,  and  the 
poor  besieging  Belgians  fall  into  inextricable  confusion. 
They  agree  to  go  home,  each  to  his  own  country,  and 
from  thence  to  proceed  to  the  defence  of  any  tribe 
which  Caesar  might  attack.  “  So,”  says  Caesar,  as  he 
ends  the  story  of  this  little  affair,  “  without  any  danger 
on  our  part,  our  men  killed  as  great  a  number  of  theirs 
as  the  space  of  the  day  would  admit.”  When  the  sun 
set,  and  not  till  then,  came  an  end  to  the  killing, — 
such  having  been  the  order  of  Caesar. 

That  these  Belgians  had  really  formed  any  intention 
of  attacking  the  Roman  province,  or  even  any  Roman 
ally,  there  is  no  other  proof  than  that  Caesar  tells  us 
that  they  had  all  conspired.  But  whatever  might  be 
their  sin,  or  what  the  lack  of  sin  on  their  part,  he  is 
determined  to  go  on  with  the  war  till  he  has  subju¬ 
gated  them  altogether.  On  the  very  next  day  he 
attacks  the  Suessiones,  and  gets  as  far  as  bToviodunum, 
— Royons.  The  people  there,  when  they  see  how  ter¬ 
rible  are  his  engines  of  war,  give  up  all  idea  of  defend¬ 
ing  themselves,  and  ask  for  terms.  The  Bellovaci  do 
the  same.  At  the  instigation  of  his  friends  the  Remi, 
he  spares  the  one  city,  and,  to  please  the  iEdui,  the 
other.  But  he  takes  away  all  their  .arms,  and  exacts 
hostages.  From  the  Bellovaci,  because  they  have  a 
name  as  a  powerful  people,  he  takes  600  hostages. 
Throughout  all  these  wars  it  becomes  a  matter  of 
wonder  to  us  what  Csesar  did  with  all  these  hostages, 
and  how  he  maintained  them.  It  was,  however,  no 
doubt  clearly  understood  that  they  would  be  killed  if 


48  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— SECOND  BOOK. 

the  town,  or  state,  or  tribe  by  which  they  were  given 
should  misbehave,  or  in  any  way  thwart  the  great 
conqueror. 

The  Amhiani  come  next,  and  the  ancestors  of  our 
intimate  friends  at  Amiens  soon  give  themselves  up. 
The  next  to  them  are  the  Hervii,  a  people  far  away  to 
the  north,  where  Lille  now  is  and  a  considerable  por¬ 
tion  of  Flanders.  Of  these  Caesar  had  heard  wonder¬ 
ful  travellers’  tales.  They  were  a  people  who  admitted 
no  dealers  among  them,  being  in  this  respect  very  un¬ 
like  their  descendants,  the  Belgians  of  to-day ;  they 
drank  no  wine,  and  indulged  in  no  luxuries,  lest  their 
martial  valour  should  be  diminished.  They  send  no 
ambassadors  to  Caesar,  and  resolve  to  hold  their  own 
if  they  can.  They  trust  solely  to  infantry  in  battle, 
and  know  nothing  of  horses.  Against  the  cavalry  of 
other  nations,  however,  they  are  wont  to  protect  them¬ 
selves  by  artificial  hedges,  which  they  make  almost 
as  strong  as  walls. 

Caesar  in  attacking  the  Nervii  had  eight  legions,  and 
he  tells  us  how  he  advanced  against  them  “consuetu- 
dine  sua,” — after  his  usual  fashion.  For  some  false  in¬ 
formation  had  been  given  to  the  Kervii  on  this  subject, 
which  brought  them  into  considerable  trouble.  He 
sent  on  first  his  .cavalry,  then  six  legions,  the  legions 
consisting  solely  of  foot-soldiers ;  after  these  all  the 
baggage,  commissariat,  and  burden  of  the  army,  com¬ 
prising  the  materials  necessary  for  sieges ;  and  lastly, 
the  two  other  legions,  which  had  been  latest  enrolled. 
It  may  be  as  well  to  explain  here  that  the  legion  in  the 
time  of  Caesar  consisted  m  paper  of  six  thousand  heavy- 


CAESAR  REDUCES  THE  BELGIAN  TRIBES.  49 


armed  foot-soldiers.  There  were  ten  cohorts  in  a  legion, 
and  six  centuries,  or  six  hundred  men,  in  each  cohort. 
It  may  possibly  be  that,  as  with  our  regiments,  the 
numbers  were  frequently  not  full.  Eight  full  legions 
would  thus  have  formed  an  army  consisting  of  48,000 
infantry.  The  exact  number  of  men  under  his  orders 
Caesar  does  not  mention  here  or  elsewhere. 

According  to  his  own  showing,  Caesar  is  hurried  into 
a  battle  before  he  knows  where  he  is.  Caesar,  he  says, 
had  everything  to  do  himself,  all  at  the  same  time, — 
to  unfurl  the  standard  of  battle,  to  give  the  signal  with 
the  trumpet,  to  get  back  the  soldiers  from  their  work, 
to  call  back  some  who  had  gone  to  a  distance  for  stuff 
to  make  a  rampart,  to  draw  up  the  army,  to  address  the 
men,  and  then  to  give  the  word.  In  that  matter  of 
oratory,  he  only  tells  them  to  remember  their  old 
valour.  The  enemy  was  so  close  upon  them,  and  so 
ready  for  fighting,  that  they  could  scarcely  put  on  their 
helmets  and  take  their  shields  out  of  their  cases.  So 
great  was  the  confusion  that  the  soldiers  could  not  get 
to  their  own  ranks,  but  had  to  fight  as  they  stood,- 
under  any  flag  that  was  nearest  to  them.  There  were 
so  many  things  against  them,  and  especially  those  thick 
artificial  hedges,  which  prevented  them  even  from  see¬ 
ing,  that  it  was  impossible  for  them,  to  fight  according 
to  any  method,  and  in  consequence  there  were  vicissi¬ 
tudes  of  fortune.  One  is  driven  to  feel  that  on  this 
occasion  Caesar  was  caught  napping.  The  JSTervii  did 
at  times  and  places  seem  to  be  getting  the  best  of  it. 
The  ninth  and  tenth  legions  pursue  one  tribe  into  a  river, 
and  then  they  have  to  fight  them  again,  and  drive  them 

A.  c.  vol.  iv.  D 


50  THE  WAR  IN  GA  UL.— SECOND  BOOK. 


out  of  the  river.  The  eleventh  and  eighth,  having  put  to 
flight  another  tribe,  are  attacked  on  the  very  river-banks. 
The  twelfth  and  the  seventh  have  their  hands  equally 
full,  when  Boduognatus,  the  Servian  chief,  makes  his 
way  into  the  very  middle  of  the  Boman  camp.  So 
great  is  the  confusion  that  the  Treviri,  who  had  joined 
Caesar  on  this  occasion  as  allies,  although  reputed  the 
bravest  of  the  cavalry  of  Gaul,  run  away  home,  and 
declare  that  the  Bomans  are  conquered.  Caesar,  how¬ 
ever,  comes  to  the  rescue,  and  saves  his  army  on  this 
occasion  by  personal  prowess.  When  he  saw  how  it 
was  going, — “rem  esse  in  angusto,” — how  the  thing 
had  got  itself  into  the  very  narrowest  neck  of  a  diffi¬ 
culty,  he  seizes  a  sliield  from  a  common  soldier, — having 
come  there  himself  with  no  shield, — and  rushes  into  the 
fight.  When  the  soldiers  saw  him,  and  saw,  too,  that 
what  they  did  was  done  in  his  sight,  they  fought  anew, 
and  the  onslaught  of  the  enemy  was  checked. 

Perhaps  readers  will  wish  that  they  could  know  how 
much  of  all  this  is  exactly  true.  It  reads  as  though  it 
were  true.  We  cannot  in  these  days  understand  how 
one  brave  man  at  such  a  moment  should  be  so  much 
more  effective  than  another,  how  he  should  be  known 
personally  to  the  soldiers  of  an  army  so  large,  how  Caesar 
should  have  known  the  names  of  the  centurions, — for  he 
tells  us  that  he  addresses  them  by  name ; — and  yet  it 
reads  like  truth  ;  and  the  reader  feels  that  as  Caesar 
would  hardly  condescend  to  boast,  so  neither  would  he 
be  constrained  by  any  modern  feeling  of  humility  from 
telling  any  truth  of  himself.  It  is  as  though  Minerva 
were  to  tell  us  of  some  descent  which  she  mad* 


CjESAR  REDUCES  THE  BELGIAN  TRIBES.  51 


among  the  Trojans.  The  Nervii  fight  on,  "but  of  course 
they  are  driven  in  flight.  The  nation  is  all  but  de¬ 
stroyed,  so  that  the  very  name  can  but  hardly  remain  ; 
— so  at  least  we  are  told  here,  though  we  h?ar  of  them 
again  as  a  tribe  by  no  means  destroyed  or  powerless. 
When  out  of  six  hundred  senators  there  are  but  three 
senators  left,  when  from  sixty  thousand  fighting  men 
the  army  has  been  reduced  to  scarcely  five  hundred, 
Caesar  throws  the  mantle  of  his  mercy  over  the  sur¬ 
vivors.  He  allows  them  even  to  go  and  live  in  their 
own  homes,  and  forbids  their  neighbours  to  harass 
them.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Caesar  nearly  got 
the  worst  of  it  in  this  struggle,  and  we  may  surmise 
that  he  learned  a  lesson  which  was  of  service  to  him 
in  subsequent  campaigns. 

But  there  are  still  certain  Aduatici  to  be  disposed 
of  before  the  summer  is  over, — people  who  had  helped 
the  Nervii, — who  have  a  city  of  their  own,  and  who 
live  somewhere  in  the  present  Namur  district.*  At 
first  they  fight  a  little  round  the  walls  of  their  town ; 
but  when  they  see  what  terrible  instruments  Caesar 

*  These  people  were  the  descendants  of  those  Cimbri  who,  half 
a  century  before,  had  caused  such  woe  to  Rome  !  The  Cimbri,  we 
are  told,  had  gone  forth  from  their  lands,  and  had  been  six  times 
victorious  over  Roman  armies,  taking  possession  of  “our  Pro¬ 
vince,”  and  threatening  Italy  and  Rome.  The  whole  empire  of 
the  Republic  had  been  in  danger,  but  was  at  last  saved  by  the 
courage,  skill,  and  rapidity  of  Marius.  In  going  forth  from 
their  country  they  had  left  a  remnant  behind  with  such  of  their 
possessions  as  they  could  not  carry  with  them  ;  and  these 
Aduatici  were  the  children  and  grandchildren  of  that  remnant. 
Ciesar  doubtless  remembered  it  all. 


52  THE  WAR  IH  OAUL.—SECOKD  BOOK. 


has,  by  means  of  which  to  get  at  them  over  their  very 
walls, — how  he  can  build  up  a  great  turret  at  a  distance, 
which,  at  that  distance,  is  ludicrous  to  them,  but  which 
he  brings  near  to  them,  so  that  it  overhangs  them,  from 
which  to  harass  them  with  arrows  and  stones,  and 
against  which,  so  high  is  it,  they  have  no  defence — 
then  they  send  out  and  beg  for  mercy.  Surely,  they 
say,  Caesar  and  the  Romans  must  have  more  than 
human  power.  They  will  give  up  everything,  if  only 
Caesar  out  of  his  mercy  will  leave  to  them  their  arms. 
They  are  always  at  war  with  all  their  neighbours ;  and 
where  would  they  be  without  arms  1 

Caesar  replies.  Merits  of  their  own  they  have  none. 
How  could  a  tribe  have  merits  against  which  Caesar 
was  at  war  1  Nevertheless,  such  being  his  custom,  he 
will  admit  them  to  some  terms  of  grace  if  they  sur¬ 
render  before  his  battering  -  ram  has  touched  their 
walls.  But  as  for  their  arms,  surely  they  must  be 
joking  with  him.  Of  course  their  arms  must  be  sur¬ 
rendered.  What  he  had  done  for  the  Nervii  he  would 
do  for  them.  He  would  tell  their  neighbours  not  to 
hurt  them.  They  agree,  and  throw  their  arms  into  the 
outside  ditch  of  the  town,  but  not  quite  all  their  arms. 
A  part, — a  third, — are  cunningly  kept  back  ;  and  when 
Caesar  enters  the  town,  they  who  have  kept  their  arms, 
and  others  unarmed,  try  to  escape  from  the  town.  They 
fight,  and  some  thousands  are  slain.  Others  are  driven 
back,  and  these  are  sold  for  slaves.  Who,  we  wonder, 
could  have  been  the  purchasers,  and  at  what  price  on 
that  day  was  a  man  to  be  bought  in  the  city  of  the 
Aduatici? 


CJ2SAR  REDUCES  THE  BELGIAN  TRIBES.  53 


Then  Csesar  learns  through  his  lieutenant,  young 
Crassus,  the  son  of  his  colleague  in  the  triumvirate,  that 
all  the  Belgian  states,  from  the  Scheldt  to  the  Bay  of 
Biscay,  have  been  reduced  beneath  the  yoke  of  the 
Homan  people.  The  Germans,  too,  send  ambassadors 
to  him,  so  convinced  are  they  that  to  fight  against  him 
is  of  no  avail, — so  wonderful  an  idea  of  this  last  war 
has  pervaded  all  the  tribes  of  barbarians.  But  Caesar 
is  in  a  hurry,  and  can  hear  no  ambassadors  now.  He 
wants  to  get  into  Italy,  and  they  must  come  again  to 
him  next  summer. 

Bor  all  which  glorious  doings  a  public  thanksgiving 
of  fifteen  days  is  decreed,  as  soon  as  the  news  is  heard 

in  Rome. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


THIRD  BOOK  OF  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— C2ESAR  SUBDUES 
THE  WESTERN  TRIBES  OF  GAUL. — B.C.  56. 

In  tlie  first  few  lines  of  the  third  book  we  learn  that 
Caesar  had  an  eye  not  only  for  conquest,  hut  for  the 
advantages  of  conquest  also.  When  he  went  into 
Italy  at  the  end  of  the  last  campaign,  he  sent  one 
Galba,  whose  descendant  became  emperor  after  Hero, 
with  the  twelfth  legion,  to  take  up  his  winter  quarters 
in  the  upper  valley  of  the  Rhone,  in  order  that  an 
easier  traffic  might  be  opened  to  traders  passing  over 
the  Alps  in  and  out  of  Northern  Italy.  It  seems  that 
the  passage  used  was  that  of  the  Great  St  Bernard,  and 
Galba  placed  himself  with  his  legion  at  that  junction 
of  the  valley  which  we  all  know  so  well  as  Martigny. 
Here,  however,  he  was  attacked  furiously  in  his  camp 
by  the  inhabitants  of  the  valley,  who  probably  objected 
to  being  dictated  to  as  to  the  amount  of  toll  to  be 
charged  upon  the  travelling  traders,  and  was  very  nearly 
destroyed.  The  Romans,  however,  at  last,  when  they 
had  neither  weapons  nor  food  left  for  maintaining  their 
camp,  resolved  to  cut  their  way  through  their  enemies. 
Tliis  they  did  so  effectually  that  they  slaughtered  more 


CJSSAR  MAKES  LITTLE  OF  DIFFICULTIES.  55 


than  ten  thousand  men,  and  the  other  twenty  thou¬ 
sand  of  Swiss  warriors  all  took  to  flight  !  Nevertheless 
Galba  thought  it  as  well  to  leave  that  inhospitable 
region,  in  which  it  was  almost  impossible  to  find  food 
for  the  winter,  and  took  himself  down  the  valley  and 
along  the  lake  to  the  Roman  Province.  He  made  his 
winter-quarters  among  the  Allobroges,  who  belonged  to 
the  Province, — a  people  living  just  south  of  the  present 
Lyons.  How  the  Allobroges  liked  it  we  are  not  told, 
but  we  know  that  they  were  then  very  faithful,  al¬ 
though  in  former  days  they  had  given  great  trouble. 
Their  position  made  faith  to  Rome  almost  a  necessity. 
Whether,  in  such  a  position,  Caesar’s  lieutenants  paid 
their  way,  and  bought  their  corn  at  market  price,  we 
do  not  know.  It  was  Caesar’s  rule,  no  doubt,  to  make 
the  country  on  which  his  army  stood  support  his  army. 

When  the  number  of  men  whom  Caesar  took  with 

liim  into  countries  hitherto  unknown  to  him  or  his 

army  is  considered,  and  the  apparently  reckless  au- 

• 

dacity  with  which  he  did  so,  it  must  be  acknowledged 
that  he  himself  says  very  little  about  his  difficulties. 
He  must  constantly  have  had  armies  for  which  to 
provide  twice  as  large  as  our  Crimean  army, — probably 
as  large  as  the  united  force  of  the  English  and  French 
in  the  Crimea ;  and  he  certainly  could  not  bring  with 
him  what  he  wanted  in  ships.  The  road  from  Bala¬ 
clava  up  to  the  heights  over  Sebastopol,  we  know,  was 
very  bad  ;  but  it  was  short.  The  road  from  the  foot  of 
the  Alps  in  the  Roman  province  to  the  countries  with 
which  we  were  dealing  in  the  last  chapter  could  not, 
we  should  say,  have  been  very  good  two  thousand 


56 


THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— THIRD  BOOK. 


years  ago,  and  it  certainly  was  very  long ; — nearly  a 
hundred  miles  for  Caesar  to  every  single  one  of  those 
that  were  so  terrible  to  us  in  the  Crimea.  Caesar, 
however,  carried  but  little  with  him  beyond  his  arms 
and  implements  of  war,  and  of  those  the  heaviest  lie 
no  doubt  made  as  he  went.  The  men  had  an  allow¬ 
ance  of  corn  per  da}7,  besides  so  much  pay.  We  are 
told  that  the  pay  before  Caesar’s  time  was  100  asses 
a-month  for  the  legionaries, — the  as  being  less  than  a 
penny, — and  that  this  was  doubled  by  Caesar.  We 
can  conceive  that  the  money  troubled  him  compara¬ 
tively  slightly,  but  that  the  finding  of  the  daily  corn  and 
forage  for  so  large  a  host  of  men  and  horses  must  have 
been  very  difficult.  He  speaks  of  the  difficulty  often, 
but  never  with  that  despair  which  was  felt  as  to  the 
roasting  of  our  coffee  in  the  Crimea.  We  hear  of  his 
waiting  till  forage  should  have  grown,  and  sometimes 
there  are  necessary  considerations  “  de  re  frumentaria,” 
— -about  that  great  general  question  of  provisions  ;  but 
of  crushing  difficulties  very  little  is  said,  and  of  bad 
roads  not  a  word.  One  great  advantage  Caesar  certainly 
had  over  Lord  Raglan ; — he  was  his  own  special  cor* 
respondent.  Coffee  his  men  certainly  did  not  get ;  but 
if  their  corn  were  not  properly  roasted  for  them,  and  if, 
as  would  be  natural,  the  men  grumbled,  he  had  with 
him  no  licensed  collector  of  grumbles  to  make  public 
the  sufferings  of  his  men. 

And  now,  when  this  affair  of  Galba’s  had  been 
finished, — when  Caesar,  as  he  tells  us,  really  did  think 
that  all  Gaul  was  “  pacatam,”  tranquillised,  or  at  least 
subdued, — the  Belgians  conquered,  the  Germans  driven 


CAESAR  SUBDUES  TUE  WESTERN  TRIBES.  57 


off,  those  Swiss  fellows  cut  to  pieces  in  the  valley  of 
the  Rhone ;  when  he  thought  that  he  might  make  a 
short  visit  into  that  other  province  of  his,  Illyricum, 
so  that  he  might  see  what  that  was  like, — he  is  told 
that  another  war  has  sprung  up  in  Gaul !  Young 
Crassus,  with  that  necessity  which  of  course  was  on  him 
of  providing  winter  food  for  the  seventh  legion  which 
he  had  been  ordered  to  take  into  Aquitania,  has  been 
obliged  to  send  out  for  corn  into  the  neighbouring 
countries.  Of  course  a  well-instructed  young  general, 
such  as  was  Crassus,  had  taken  hostages  before  he  sent 
his  men  out  among  strange  and  wild  barbarians.  Rut 
in  spite  of  that,  the  Yeneti,  a  maritime  people  of  an¬ 
cient  Brittany,  just  in  that  country  of  the  Morbihan 
whither  we  now  go  to  visit  the  works  of  the  Druids  at 
Carnac  and  Locmariaker,  absolutely  detained  his  two 
ambassadors  — so  called  afterwards,  though  in  his  first 
mention  of  them  Caesar  names  them  as  praefects  and 
tribunes  of  the  soldiers.  Yannes,  the  capital  of  the 
department  of  the  Morbihan,  gives  us  a  trace  of  the 
name  of  this  tribe.  The  Yeneti,  who  were  powerful 
in  ships,  did  not  see  why  they  should  give  their  corn 
to  Crassus.  Caesar,  when  he  hears  that  ambassadors, 
—  sacred  ambassadors,  —  have  been  stopped,  is  filled 
with  shame  and  indignation,  and  hurries  off  himself  to 
look  after  the  affair,  having,  as  we  may  imagine,  been 
able  to  see  very  little  of  Illyricum. 

This  horror  of  Caesar  in  regard  to  his  ambassadors, — 
in  speaking  of  which  he  alludes  to  what  the  Gauls 
themselves  felt  when  they  came  to  understand  what  a 
thing  they  had  done  in  making  ambassadors  prisoners. 


58 


THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— THIRD  BOOR . 


— “  legatos,” — a  name  that  has  always  been  held  sacred 
and  inviolate  among  all  nations, — is  very  great,  and 
makes  him  feel  that  he  must  really  he  in  earnest.  We 
are  reminded  of  the  injunctions,  printed  in  Spanish, 
which  the  Spaniards  distributed  among  the  Indians  of 
the  continent,  in  the  countries  now  called  Venezuela 
and  Hew  Granada,  explaining  to  the  people,  who  knew 
nothing  of  Spanish  or  of  printing,  how  they  were 
hound  to  obey  the  orders  of  a  distant  king,  who  had 
the  authority  of  a  more  distant  Pope,  who  again, — so 
they  claimed, — was  delegated  by  a  more  distant  God. 
The  pain  of  history  consists  in  the  injustice  of  the 
wolf  towards  the  lamb,  joined  to  the  conviction  that 
thus,  and  no  otherwise,  could  the  lamb  be  brought  to 
better  than  a  sheepish  mode  of  existence  !  But  Csesar 
was  in  earnest.*  The  following  is  a  translation  of  the 
tenth  section  of  this  book ;  “There  were  these  diffi¬ 
culties  in  carrying  on  the  war  which  we  have  above 
shown.” — He  alludes  to  the  maritime  capacities  of  the 
people  whom  he  desires  to  conquer. — “  Many  things, 
nevertheless,  urged  Caesar  on  to  this  war; — the  wrongs 
of  those  Boman  knights  who  had  been  detained,  rebel¬ 
lion  set  on  foot  after  an  agreed  surrender,” — that  any 

*  And  Cresar  was  no  doubt  indignant  as  well  as  earnest, 
though,  perhaps,  irrational  in  his  indignation.  We  know  how 
sacred  was  held  to  be  the  person  of  the  Roman  citizen,  and 
remember  Cicero’s  patriotic  declaration,  “  F acinus  est  vinciri 
civem  Romanum, — scelus  verberari ;  ”  and  again,  the  words 
which  Horace  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Regulus  when  he  asserts 
that  the  Roman  soldier  must  be  lost  for  ever  in  his  shame,  and 
useless,  “Qui  lora  restiictis  lacertis  Sensit  iners  timuitque 
mortem.” 


CAESAR  SUBDUES  THE  WESTERN  TRIBES.  59 


such,  surrender  had  been  made  we  do  not  hear,  though 
we  do  hear,  incidentally,  that  Crassus  had  taken  hos¬ 
tages  ; — “  a  falling  off  from  alliance  after  hostages  had 
been  given ;  conspiracy  among  so  many  tribes ;  and 
then  this  first  consideration,  that  if  this  side  of  the 
country  were  disregarded,  the  other  tribes  might  learn 
to  think  that  they  might  take  the  same  liberty.  Then, 
when  he  bethought  himself  that,  as  the  Gauls  were 
prone  to  rebellion,  and  were  quickly  and  easily  excited 
to  war,  and  that  all  men,  moreover,  are  fond  of  liberty 
and  hate  a  condition  of  subjection,  he  resolved  that  it 
would  be  well,  rather  than  that  other  states  should 
conspire,” — and  to  avoid  the  outbreak  on  behalf  of  free¬ 
dom  which  might  thus  probably  be  made, — “  that  his 
army  should  be  divided,  and  scattered  about  more 
widely.”  Treating  all  Gaul  as  a  chess-board,  he  sends 
round  to  provide  that  the  Treviri  should  be  kept  quiet. 
Readers  will  remember  how  far  Treves  is  distant  from 
the  extremities  of  Brittany.  The  Belgians  are  to  be 
looked  to,  lest  they  should  rise  and  come  and  help. 
The  Germans  are  to  be  prevented  from  crossing  the 
Rhine.  Labienus,  who,  during  the  Gallic  wars,  wras 
Caesar’s  general  highest  in  trust,  is  to  see  to  all  this. 
Crassus  is  to  go  back  into  Aquitania  and  keep  the  south 
quiet.  Titurius  Sabinus,  destined  afterwards  to  a  sad 
end,  is  sent  with  three  legions, — eighteen  thousand  men, 
— among  the  neighbouring  tribes  of  Northern  Brittany 
and  Normandy.  “Young”  Decimus  Brutus, — Caesar 
speaks  of  him  with  that  kind  affection  which  the  epithet 
conveys,  and  we  remember,  as  we  read,  that  this  Brutus 
appears  afterwards  in  history  as  one  of  Caesar’s  slayers, 


6C 


THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— THIRD  BOOR . 


in  conjunction  with  his  greater  namesake, — young  De* 
cimus  Brutus,  the  future  conspirator  in  Rome,  has  con¬ 
fided  to  him  the  fleet  which  is  to  destroy  these  much 
less  guilty  distant  conspirators,  and  Caesar  himself  takes 
the  command  of  his  own  legions  on  the  spot.  All  this 
is  told  in  fewer  words  than  are  here  used  in  describing 
the  telling,  and  the  reader  feels  that  he  has  to  do  with  a 
mighty  man,  whose  eyes  are  everywhere,  and  of  whom 
an  ordinary  enemy  would  certainly  say,  Surely  this  is 
no  man,  but  a  god. 

He  tells  us  how  great  was  the  effect  of  his  own 
presence  on  the  shore,  though  the  battle  was  carried 
on  under  young  Brutus  at  sea.  “  What  remained  of 
the  conflict,”  he  says,  after  describing  their  manoeuvres, 
“  depended  on  valour,  in  which  our  men  were  far  away 
the  superior ;  and  this  was  more  especially  true  be¬ 
cause  the  affair  was  carried  on  so  plainly  in  the  sight 
of  Caesar  and  the  whole  army  that  no  brave  deed  could 
pass  unobserved.  For  all  the  hills  and  upper  lands, 
from  whence  the  view  down  upon  the  sea  was  close, 
were  covered  by  the  army.” 

Of  course  he  conquers  the  Yeneti  and  other  sea-going 
tribes,  even  on  their  own  element.  Whereupon  they 
give  themselves  and  all  their  belongings  up  to  Caesar. 
Caesar,  desirous  that  the  rights  of  ambassadors  shall 
hereafter  be  better  respected  among  barbarians,  deter¬ 
mines  that  he  must  use  a  little  severity.  “Gravius 
vindicandum  statuit ;  ” — “  he  resolved  that  the  offence 
should  be  expiated  with  more  than  ordinary  punish¬ 
ment.”  Consequently,  he  kills  all  the  senate,  and  sells 
all  the  other  men  as  slaves  !  The  pithy  brevity,  the 


CJESAR  SUBDUES  THE  WESTERN  TRIBES.  G1 


unapologetic  dignity  of  the  sentence,  as  he  pronounced 
it  and  tells  it  to  us,  is  heartrending,  hut,  at  this  dis¬ 
tance  of  time,  delightful  also.  “  Itaque,  omni  senatu 
necato,  reliquos  sub  corona  vendidit ;  ” — “  therefore, 
all  the  senate  having  been  slaughtered,  he  sold  the 
other  citizens  with  chaplets  on  their  heads  ;  ” — it  being 
the  Roman  custom  so  to  mark  captives  in  war  intended 
for  sale.  We  can  see  him  as  he  waves  his  hand  and 
passes  on.  Surely  he  must  be  a  god  ! 

His  generals  in  this  campaign  are  equally  successful. 
One  Yiridovix,  a  Gaul  up  in  the  Normandy  country, — 
somewhere  about  Avranches  or  St  Lo,  we  may  imagine, 
—  is  entrapped  into  a  fight,  and  destroyed  with  his 
army.  Aquitania  surrenders  herself  to  Crassus,  after 
much  fighting,  and  gives  up  her  arms. 

Then  Caesar  reflects  that  the  Morin  i  and  the  Menapii 
had  as  yet  never  bowed  their  heads  to  him.  Boulogne 
and  Calais  stand  in  the  now  well-known  territory  of 
the  Morini,  but  the  Menapii  lie  a  long  way  off,  up 
among  the  mouths  of  the  Scheldt  and  the  Rhine, — the 
Low  Countries  of  modern  history, — an  uncomfortable 
people  then,  who  would  rush  into  their  woods  and 
marshes  after  a  spell  of  fighting,  and  who  seemed  to 
have  no  particular  homes  or  cities  that  could  be  at¬ 
tacked  or  destroyed.  It  was  nearly  the  end  of  summer 
just  now,  and  the  distance  between,  let  us  say,  Yannes 
in  Brittany,  and  Breda,  or  even  Antwerp,  seems  to  us 
tc  be  considerable,  when  we  remember  the  condition  of 
the  country,  and  the  size  of  Caesar’s  army.  But  he  had 
a  few  weeks  to  fill  up,  and  then  he  might  feel  that  all 
Gaul  had  been  “  pacified.”  At  present  there  was  this 


62 


THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— THIRD  BOOR. 


haughty  little  northern  corner.  “  Omni  Gallia  pacata, 
Morini  Menapiique  supererant ;  ”■ — “  all  Gaul  having 
been  pacified,  the  Morini  and  Menapii  remained.”  He 
was,  moreover,  no  doubt  beginning  to  reflect  that  from 
the  Morini  could  be  made  the  shortest  journey  into  that 
wild  Ultima  Thule  of  an  island  in  which  lived  the 
Britanni.  Caesar  takes  advantage  of  the  few  weeks,  and 
attacks  these  uncomfortable  people.  When  they  retreat 
into  the  woods,  he  cuts  the  woods  down.  He  does  cut 
down  an  immense  quantity  of  wood,  but  the  enemy  only 
recede  into  thicker  and  bigger  woods.  Bad  weather 
comes  on,  and  the  soldiers  can  no  longer  endure  life  in 
their  skin  tents.  Let  us  fancy  these  Italians  encounter¬ 
ing  winter  in  undrained  Blunders,  with  no  walls  or  roofs 
to  protect  them,  and  ordered  to  cut  down  interminable 
woods !  Had  a  ‘Times’  been  then  written  and  filed,  in¬ 
stead  of  a  “Commentary”  from  the  hands  of  the  General- 
in-chief,  we  should  probably  have  heard  of  a  good  deal 
of  suffering.  As  it  is,  we  are  only  told  that  Csesar  had. 
to  give  up  his  enterprise  for  that  year.  He  therefore 
burned  all  their  villages,  laid  waste  all  their  fields,  and 
then  took  his  army  down  into  a  more  comfortable  re¬ 
gion  south  of  the  Seine,  and  there  put  them  into  winter 
quarters, — net  much  to  the  comfort  of  the  people  there 
residing. 


CHAPTER  V. 

FOURTH  BOOK  OF  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL. — CiESAR  CROSSES  THB 
RHINE,  SLAUGHTERS  THE  GERMANS,  AND  GOES  INTO 
BRITAIN. — B.C.  55. 

In  the  next  year  certain  Germans,  TJsipetes  and  others, 
crossed  the  Rhine  into  Ganl,  not  far  from  the  sea,  as 
Caesar  tells  us.  He  tells  us  again,  that  when  he  drove 
the  Germans  hack  over  the  river,  it  was  near  the 
confluence  of  the  Meuse  and  the  Rhine.  When  we 
remember  how  difficult  it  was  for  Caesar  to  obtain 
information,  we  must  acknowledge  that  his  geography 
as  to  the  passage  of  the  Rhine  out  to  the  sea,  and  of 
the  junction  of  the  Rhine  and  the  Meuse  by  the  Waal, 
is  wonderfully  correct.  The  spot  indicated  as  that  at 
which  the  Germans  were  driven  into  the  river  would 
seem  to  be  near  Bommel  in  Holland,  where  the  Waal 
and  the  Meuse  join  their  waters,  at  the  head  of  the 
island*  of  Bommel,  where  Fort  St  Andrt$  stands,  or  stood.* 

*  Caesar  speaks  of  the  confluence  of  the  Rhine  and  the 
“Mosa”  as  the  spot  at  which  he  drove  the  Germans  into  the 
river, — and  in  various  passages,  speaking  of  the  Mosa,  clearly 
means  the  Meuse.  It  appears,  however,  to  be  the  opinion  of 
English  scholars  who  have  studied  the  topography  of  Caesar’s 


64  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.- FOURTH  BOOK. 


Those  wonderful  Suevi,  among  whom  the  men 
alternately  fight  and  plough,  year  and  year  about, 
caring  more,  however,  for  cattle  than  they  do  for  corn, 
who  are  socialists  in  regard  to  land,  having  no  private 
property  in  their  fields, — who,  all  of  therm  from  their 
youth  upwards,  do  just  what  they  please, — large,  bony 
men,  who  wear,  even  in  these  cold  regions,  each  simply 
some  scanty  morsel  of  skin  covering, — who  bathe  in  rivers 
all  the  year  through,  who  deal  with  traders  only  to  sell 
the  spoils  of  war,  who  care  but  little  for  their  horses, 
and  ride,  when  they  do  ride,  without  saddles, — think¬ 
ing  nothing  of  men  to  whom  such  delicate  appendages 
are  necessary, — who  drink  no  wine,  and  will  have  no 
neighbours  near  them, — these  ferocious  Suevi  have 
driven  other  German  tribes  over  the  Rhine  into  Gaul. 
Caesar,  hearing  this,  is  filled  with  apprehension.  He 
knows  the  weakness  of  his  poor  friends  the  Gauls, — 
how  prone  they  are  to  gossiping,  of  what  a  restless  tem¬ 
per.  It  is  in  the  country  of  the  Menapii,  the  tribe  with 
which  he  did  not  quite  finish  his  little  affair  in  the  last 
chapter,  that  these  Germans  are  settling ;  and  there  is 
no  knowing  what  trouble  the  intruders  may  give  him 
if  he  allows  them  to  make  themselves  at  home  on  that 

campaigns  with  much  labour,  that  the  confluence  of  the  Moselle 
and  Rhine,  from  which  Coblentz  derives  its  name,  is  the  spot 
intended.  Napoleon,  who  has  hardly  made  himself  an  autho¬ 
rity  on  the  affairs  of  Caesar  generally,  hut  who  is  thought  to  be 
an  authority  in  regard  to  topography,  holds  to  the  opinion  that 
the  site  in  Holland  is  intended  to  be  described.  Readers 
who  are  anxious  on  the  subject  can  ehoose  between  the  two  ; 
but  readers  who  are  not  anxious  will  probably  he  more  numer¬ 
ous. 


CjESAR  DRIVES  THE  GERMANS  OUT  OF  GAUL.  65 


side  of  the  river.  So  he  hurries  off  to  give  help  to 
the  poor  Menapii. 

Of  course  there  is  a  sending  of  ambassadors.  The 
Germans  acknowledge  that  they  have  been  turned  out 
of  their  own  lands  by  their  brethren,  the  Suevi,  who 
are  better  men  than  they  are.  But  they  profess  that, 
in  fighting,  the  Suevi,  and  the  Suevi  only,  are  their 
masters.  Not  even  the  immortal  gods  can  stand 
against  the  Suevi.  But  they  also  are  Germans,  and 
are  not  at  all  afraid  of  the  Romans.  But  in  the  pro¬ 
position  which  they  make  they  show  some  little  awe. 
Will  Caesar  allow  them  to  remain  where  they  are,  or  allot 
to  them  some  other  region  on  that  side  of  the  Rhine  1 
Caesar  tells  them  that  they  may  go  and  live,  if  they 
please,  with  the  Ubii, — another  tribe  of  Germans  who 
occupy  the  Rhine  country,  probably  where  Cologne  now 
stands,  or  perhaps  a  little  north  of  it,  and  who  seem  already 
to  have  been  forced  over  the  Rhine, — they,  or  some  of 
them, — and  to  have  made  good  their  footing  somewhere 
in  the  region  in  which  Charlemagne  built  his  church, 
now  called  Aix-la-Chapelle.  There  they  are,  Germans 
still,  and  probably  are  so  because  these  Ubii  made 
good  their  footing.  The  Ubii  also  are  in  trouble  with 
the  Suevi;  and  if  these  intruders  will  go  and  join  the 
Ubii,  Caesar  will  make  it  all  straight  for  them.  The 
intruders  hesitate,  but  do  not  go,  and  at  last  attack 
Caesar’s  cavalry,  not  without  some  success.  During 
this  fight  there  is  double  treachery, — first  on  the  part 
of  the  Germans,  and  then  on  Caesar’s  part, — which  is 
chiefly  memorable  for  the  attack  made  on  Caesar  in 
Rome.  It  was  in  consequence  of  the  deceit  here 

a.  c.  voh  iv.  K 


66  the  WAR  IN  GAUL.— FOURTH  BOOK. 


practised  that  it  was  proposed  "by  his  enemies  in  the 
city  that  he  should  he  given  up  by  the  Republic  to 
the  foe.  Had  any  such  decree  been  passed,  it  would 
not  have  been  easy  to  give  up  Caesar. 

The  Germans  are,  of  course,  beaten,  and  they  are 
driven  into  the  river  on  those  low  and  then  undrained 
regions  in  which  the  Rhine  and  the  Meuse  and  the 
Waal  confuse  themselves  and  confuse  travellers; — 
either  here,  or  much  higher  up  the  river  at  Coblentz , 
hut  the  reader  will  already  have  settled  that  question 
for  himself  at  the  beginning  of  the  chapter.  Ca3sar 
speaks  of  these  Germans  as  though  they  were  all 
drowned,  —  men,  women,  and  children.  They  had 
brought  their  entire  families  with  them,  and,  when 
the  lighting  went  against  them,  with  their  entire 
families  they  fled  into  the  river.  Caesar  was  pursuing 
them  after  the  battle,  and  they  precipitated  themselves 
over  the  banks.  There,  overcome  by  fear,  fatigue,  and 
the  waters,  they  perished.  There  was  computed  to 
be  a  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  of  them  who  were 
destroyed  ;  but  the  Roman  army  was  safe  to  a  man.* 

Then  Caesar  made  up  his  mind  to  cross  the  river. 
It  seems  that  he  had  no  intention  of  extending  the 
empire  of  the  Republic  into  what  he  called  Germany, 
but  that  he  thought  it  necessary  to  frighten  the  Ger¬ 
mans.  The  cavalry  of  those  intruding  Usipetes  had, 
luckily  for  them,  been  absent,  foraging  over  the  river  ; 
and  he  now  sent  to  the  Sigambri,  among  whom  they 

*  “  Hostium  numerus  capitum  CDXXX  millium  fuisset,” 
from  which  words  we  are  led  to  suppose  that  there  were  180,000 
fighting  men,  besides  the  women  and  children. 


CJSSAR  DRIVES  THE  GERMANS  OUT  OF  GAUL.  G7 


had  taken  refuge,  desiring  that  these  horsemen  should 
be  given  up  to  him.  But  the  Sigambri  will  not  obey. 
The  Germans  seem  to  have  understood  that  Caesar  had 
Gaul  in  his  hands,  to  do  as  he  liked  with  it ;  but  they 
grudged  his  interference  beyond  the  Rhine.  Caesar, 
however,  always  managed  to  have  a  set  of  friends 
among  his  enemies,  to  help  him  in  adjusting  his 
enmities.  We  have  heard  of  the  iEdui  in  central 
Gaul,  and  of  the  Remi  in  the  north.  The  Ubii  were 
his  German  friends,  who  were  probably  at  this  time 
occupying  both  banks  of  the  river ;  and  the  Ubii  ask 
him  just  to  come  over  and  frighten  their  neighbours. 
Caesar  resolves  upon  gratifying  them.  And  as  it  is  not 
consistent  either  with  his  safety  or  with  his  dignity  to 
cross  the  river  in  boats,  he  determines  to  build  a  bridge. 

Is  there  a  schoolboy  in  England,  or  one  who  has 
been  a  schoolboy,  at  any  Caesar-reading  school,  who 
does  not  remember  those  memorable  words,  “  Tigna 
bina  sesquipedalia,”  with  which  Caesar  begins  his 
graphic  account  of  the  building  of  the  bridge  ]  When 
the  breadth  of  the  river  is  considered,  its  rapidity,  and 
the  difficulty  which  there  must  have  been  in  finding 
tools  and  materials  for  such  a  construction,  in  a  country 
so  wild  and  so  remote  from  Roman  civilisation,  the 
creation  of  this  bridge  fills  us  with  admiration  for 
Caesar’s  spirit  and  capacity.  He  drove  down  piles 
into  the  bed  of  the  river,  two  and  two,  prone  against 
the  stream.  We  could  do  that  now,  though  hardly  as 
quickly  as  Caesar  did  it ;  but  we  should  want  coffer-dams 
and  steam-pumps,  patent  rammers,  and  a  clerk  of  the 
works.  He  explains  to  us  that  he  so  built  the  foun- 


GS  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— FOURTH  BOOK. 

dations  that  the  very  strength  of  the  stream  added  to 
their  strength  and  consistency.  In  ten  days  the  whole 
thing  was  done,  and  the  army  carried  over.  Caesar 
does  not  tell  us  at  what  suffering,  or  with  the  loss  of 
how  many  men.  It  is  the  simplicity  of  everything 
which  is  so  wonderful  in  these  Commentaries.  We 
have  read  of  works  constructed  by  modern  armies,  and 
of  works  which  modern  armies  could  not  construct. 
We  remember  the  road  up  from  Balaclava,  and  the 
railway  which  was  sent  out  from  England.  We  know, 
too,  what  are  the  aids  and  appliances  with  which  science 
has  furnished  us.  But  yet  in  no  modern  warfare  do 
the  difficulties  seem  to  have  been  so  light,  so  little 
worthy  of  mention,  as  they  were  to  Caesar.  He  made 
his  bridge  and  took  over  his  army,  cavalry  and  all,  in 
ten  days.  There  must  have  been  difficulty  and  hard¬ 
ship,  and  the  drowning,  we  should  fear,  of  many  men ; 
but  Caesar  says  nothing  of  all  this. 

Ambassadors  immediately  are  sent.  Erom  the  mo¬ 
ment  in  which  the  bridge  was  begun,  the  Sigambri  ran 
away  and  hid  themselves  in  the  woods.  Caesar  burns 
all  their  villages,  cuts  down  all  their  corn,  and  travels 
down  into  the  country  of  the  Ubii.  He  comforts  them  ; 
and  tidings  of  his  approach  then  reach  those  terrible 
Suevi.  They  make  ready  for  war  on  a  grand  scale ; 
but  Caesar,  reflecting  that  he  had  not  brought  his  army 
over  the  river  for  the  sake  of  fighting  the  Suevi,  and 
telling  us  that  he  had  already  done  enough  for  honour 
and  for  the  good  of  the  cause,  took  his  army  back 
after  eighteen  days  spent  in  the  journey,  and  destroyed 
his  bridge. 


CJ5SAR  INVADES  BRITAIN. 


69 


Then  comes  a  passage  which  makes  a  Briton  vacil¬ 
late  between  shame  at  bis  own  ancient  insignificance, 
and  anger  at  Caesar’s  misapprehension  of  his  ancient 
character.  There  were  left  of  the  fighting  season  after 
Caesar  came  hack  across  the  Rhine  just  a  few  weeks ; 
and  what  can  he  do  better  with  them  than  go  over  and 
conquer  Britannia?  This  first  record  of  an  invasion 
upon  us  comes  in  at  the  fag-end  of  a  chapter,  and  the 
invasion  was  made  simply  to  fill  up  the  summer  !  No¬ 
body,  Caesar  tells  us,  seemed  to  know  anything  about 
the  island ;  and  yet  it  was  the  fact  that  in  all  his  wars 
with  the  Gauls,  the  Gauls  were  helped  by  men  out  of 
Britain.  Before  he  will  face  the  danger  with  his  army 
he  sends  over  a  trusty  messenger,  to  look  about  and 
find  out  something  as  to  the  coasts  and  harbours.  The 
trusty  messenger  does  not  dare  to  disembark,  but  comes 
back  and  tells  Caesar  what  he  has  seen  from  his  ship. 
Caesar,  in  the  mean  time,  has  got  together  a  great  fleet 
somewhere  in  the  Boulogne  and  Calais  country;  and, 
— so  he  says, — messengers  have  come  to  him  from 
Britain,  whither  rumours  of  his  purpose  have  already 
flown,  saying  that  they  will  submit  themselves  to  the 
Roman  Republic.  We  may  believe  just  as  much  of 
that  as  we  please.  But  he  clearly  thinks  less  of  the 
Boulogne  and  Calais  people  than  he  does  even  of  the 
Britons,  which  is  a  comfort  to  us.  When  these  peo¬ 
ple, — then  called  Morini, — came  to  him,  asking  pardon 
for  having  dared  to  oppose  him  once  before,  and  offer¬ 
ing  any  number  of  hostages,  and  saying  that  they  had 
been  led  on  by  bad  advice,  Caesar  admitted  them  into 
some  degree  of  grace ;  not  wishing,  as  he  tells  us,  to  be 


70  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— FOURTH  ROOK. 


kept  rat  of  Britain  by  the  consideration  of  such  very 
small  affairs.  “Nequehas  tantularum  rerum  occupa- 
tiones  sibi  Britannise  anteponendas  judicabat.”  We 
hope  that  the  Boulogne  and  Calais  people  understand 
and  appreciate  the  phrase.  Having  taken  plenty  of 
hostages,  he  determines  to  trust  the  Boulogne  and 
Calais  people,  and  prepares  his  ships  for  passing  the 
Channel.  He  starts  nearly  at  the  third  watch, — about 
midnight,  we  may  presume.  A  portion  of  his  army, — 
the  cavalry, — encounter  some  little  delay,  such  as  has 
often  occurred  on  the  same  spot  since,  even  to  travel¬ 
lers  without  horses.  He  himself  got  over  to  the 
British  coast  at  about  the  fourth  hour.  This,  at  mid¬ 
summer,  would  have  been  about  a  quarter  past  eight. 
As  it  was  now  late  in  the  summer,  it  may  have  been 
nine  o’clock  in  the  morning  when  Csesar  found  him¬ 
self  under  the  cliffs  of  Kent,  and  saw  our  armed  ances¬ 
tors  standing  along  all  the  hills  ready  to  meet  him. 
He  stayed  at  anchor,  waiting  for  his  ships,  till  about 
two  p.m.  His  cavalry  did  not  get  across  till  four  days 
afterwards.  Having  given  his  orders,  and  found  a 
fitting  moment  and  a  fitting  spot,  Csesar  runs  his  ships 
up  upon  the  beach. 

Csesar  confesses  to  a  good  deal  of  difficulty  in  getting 
ashore.  When  we  know  how  very  hard  it  is  to  ac¬ 
complish  the  same  feat,  on  the  same  coast,  in  these 
days,  with  all  the  appliances  of  modern  science  to  aid 
us,  and,  as  we  must  presume,  with  no  real  intention 
on  the  part  of  the  Cantii,  or  men  of  Kent,  to  oppose 
our  landing,  we  can  quite  sympathise  with  Csesar. 
The  ships  were  so  big  that  they  could  not  be  brought 


CMS  A  R  INVADES  BRITAIN. 


71 


into  very  shallow  water.  The  Roman  soldiers  were 
compelled  to  jump  into  the  sea,  heavily  armed,  and 
there  to  fight  with  the  waves  and  with  the  enemy. 
But  the  Britons,  having  the  use  of  all  their  limbs, 
knowing  the  ground,  standing  either  on  the  shore  or 
just  running  into  the  shallows,  made  the  landing  un¬ 
easy  enough.  “hTostri,” — our  men, — says  Caesar,  with 
all  these  things  against  them,  were  not  all  of  them  so 
alert  at  fighting  as  was  usual  with  them  on  dry  ground ; 
— at  which  no  one  can  he  surprised. 

Caesar  had  two  kinds  of  ships  —  “naves  longae,” 
long  ships  for  carrying  soldiers ;  and  “  naves  oner- 
arise,”  ships  for  carrying  burdens.  The  long  ships 
do  not  seem  to  have  been  such  ships  of  war  as  the 
Romans  generally  used  in  their  sea-fights,  hut  were 
handier,  and  more  easily  worked,  than  the  trans¬ 
ports.  These  he  laid  broadside  to  the  shore,  and 
harassed  the  poor  natives  with  stones  and  arrows. 
Then  the  eagle-hearer  of  the  tenth  legion  jumped 
into  the  sea,  proclaiming  that  he,  at  any  rate, 
would  do  his  dut}’’.  Unless  they  wished  to  see  their 
eagle  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy,  they  must 
follow  him.  “  J ump  down,  he  said,  my  fellow-sol¬ 
diers,  unless  you  wish  to  betray  your  eagle  to  the 
enemy.  I  at  least  will  do  my  duty  to  the  Republic 
and  to  our  General.  When  he  had  said  this  with  a 
loud  voice,  he  threw  himself  out  of  the  ship  and 
advanced  the  eagle  against  the  enemy.”  Seeing  and 
hearing  this,  the  men  leaped  forth  freely,  from  that 
ship  and  from  others.  As  usual,  there  was  some  sharp 
fighting.  Pugnatum  est  ab  utrisque  acriter.”  It  is 


72  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— FOURTH  BOOK. 

nearly  always  the  same  thing.  Csesar  throws  away 
none  of  his  glory  by  underrating  his  enemy.  But 
at  length  the  Britons  fly.  “  This  thing  only  was 
wanting  to  Caesar’s  usual  good  fortune,” — that  he  was 
deficient  in  cavalry  wherewith  to  ride  on  in  pursuit, 
and  “  take  the  island  !  ”  Considering  how  very  short 
a  time  he  remains  in  the  island,  we  feel  that  his  com¬ 
plaint  against  fortune  is  hardly  well  founded.  But 
there  is  a  general  surrender,  and  a  claiming  of  hos¬ 
tages,  and  after  a  few  days  a  sparkle  of  new  hope  in 
the  breasts  of  the  Britons.  A  storm  arises,  and  Caesar’s 
ships  are  so  knocked  about  that  he  does  not  know  how 
he  will  get  back  to  Gaul.  He  is  troubled  by  a  very 
high  tide,  not  understanding  the  nature  of  these  tides. 
As  he  had  only  intended  this  for  a  little  tentative 
trip, — a  mere  taste  of  a  future  war  with  Britain, — he  had 
brought  no  large  supply  of  corn  with  him.  He  must 
get  back,  by  hook  or  by  crook.  The  Britons,  seeing 
how  it  is  with  him,  think  that  they  can  destroy  him, 
and  make  an  attempt  to  do  so.  The  seventh  legion  is 
in  great  peril,  having  been  sent  out  to  find  corn,  but 
is  rescued.  Certain  of  his  ships, — those  which  had  been 
most  grievously  handled  by  the  storm, — he  breaks  up, 
in  order  that  he  mav  mend  the  others  with  their  mate- 
rials.  When  we  think  how  long  it  takes  us  to  mend 
ships,  having  dockyards,  and  patent  slips,  and  all 
things  ready,  this  is  most  marvellous  to  us.  But  he 
does  mend  his  ships,'  and  while  so  doing  he  has  a 
second  fight  with  the  Britons,  and  again  repulses  them. 
There  is  a  burning  and  destroying  of  everything  far 
and  wide,  a  gathering  of  ambassadors  to  Csesar  asking 


CAESAR  INVADES  BRITAIN. 


73 


for  terms,  a  demand  for  hostages, — a  double  number  of 
hostages  now, — whom  Caesar  desired  to  have  sent  over 
to  him  to  Gaul,  because  at  this  time  of  the  year  be  did 
not  choose  to  trust  them  to  ships  that  were  unsea¬ 
worthy;  and  he  himself,  with  all  his  army,  gets  hack 
into  the  Boulogne  and  Calais  country.  Two  trans¬ 
ports  only  are  missing,  which  are  carried  somewhat 
lower  down  the  coast.  There  are  hut  three  hundred 
men  in  these  transports,  and  these  the  Morini  of  those 
parts  threaten  to  kill  unless  they  will  give  up  their 
arms.  But  Caesar  sends  help,  and  even  these  three 
hundred  are  saved  from  disgrace.  There  is,  of  course, 
more  burning  of  houses  and  laying  waste  of  fields  be¬ 
cause  of  this  little  attempt,  and  then  Caesar  puts  his 
army  into  winter  quarters. 

What  would  have  been  the  difference  to  the  world 
if  the  Britons,  as  they  surely  might  have  done,  had 
destroyed  Caesar  and  every  Roman,  and  not  left  even  a 
ship  to  get  back  to  Gaul  1  In  lieu  of  this  Caesar  could 
send  news  to  Rome  of  these  various  victories,  and  have 
a  public  thanksgiving  decreed, — on  this  occasion  for 
twenty  days. 


CHAPTER  YT. 


FIFTH  BOOK  OF  7  HE  WAR  IN  GAUL. — CESAR’S  SECOND  INVASION 
OF  BRITAIN. — THE  GAULS  RISE  AGAINST  HIM.— B.C.  54. 

On  his  return  out  of  Britain,  Caesar,  as  usual,  went  over 
the  Alps  to  look  after  his  other  provinces,  and  to 
attend  to  his  business  in  Italy ;  hut  he  was  determined 
to  make  another  raid  upon  the  island.  He  could  not 
yet  assume  that  he  had  “  taken  it,”  and  therefore  he 
left  minute  instructions  with  his  generals  as  to  the 
building  of  more  ships,  and  the  repair  of  those  which 
had  been  so  nearly  destroyed.  He  sends  to  Spain,  he 
tells  us,  for  the  things  necessary  to  equip  his  ships. 
We  never  hear  of  any  difficulty  about  money.  We 
know  that  he  did  obtain  large  grants  from  Rome  for 
the  support  of  his  legions ;  but  no  scruple  was  made 
in  making  war  maintain  war,  as  far  as  such  mainten¬ 
ance  could  be  obtained.  Caesar  personally  was  in  an 
extremity  of  debt  when  he  commenced  his  campaigns. 
He  had  borrowed  an  enormous  sum,  eight  hundred 
and  thirty  talents,  or  something  over  £200,000,  from 
Crassus, — who  was  specially  the  rich  Roman  of  those 
days, — before  he  could  take  charge  of  his  Spanish  pro¬ 
vince.  When  his  wars  were  over,  he  returned  to  Rome 


CuESAR'S  SECOND  INVASION  OF  BRITAIN.  75 


■with  a  great  treasure ;  and  indeed  during  these  wars 
in  Gaul  he  expended  large  sums  in  bribing  Romans. 
We  may  suppose  that  he  found  hoards  among  the 
barbarians,  as  Lord  Clive  did  in  the  East  Indies. 
Clive  contented  himself  with  taking  some :  Caesar 
probably  took  all. 

Having  given  the  order  about  his  ships,  he  settled 
a  little  matter  in  Illyricum,  taking  care  to  raise  some 
tribute  there  also.  He  allows  but  a  dozen  lines  for 
recording  this  winter  work,  and  then  tells  us  that  he 
hurried  back  to  his  army  and  his  ships.  His  command 
had  been  so  well  obeyed  in  regard  to  vessels,  that  he 
finds  ready,  of  that  special  sort  which  he  had  ordered 
with  one  bank  of  oars  only  on  each  side,  as  many  as 
six  hundred,  and  twenty-eight  of  the  larger  sort.  He 
gives  his  soldiers  very  great  credit  for  their  exertions, 
and  sends  his  fleet  to  the  Portus  Itius.  The  exact 
spot  which  Caesar  called  by  this  name  the  geographers 
have  not  identified,  but  it  is  supposed  to  be  between 
Boulogne  and  Calais.  It  may  probably  have  been 
at  Wissant.  Having  seen  that  things  were  thus 
ready  for  a  second  trip  into  Britain,  he  turns  round 
and  hurries  off  with  four  legions  and  eight  hundred 
cavalry, — an  army  of  25,000  men, — into  the  Treves 
country.  There  is  a  quarrel  going  on  there  be¬ 
tween  two  chieftains  which  it  is  well  that  he  should 
settle, — somewhat  as  the  monkey  settled  the  contest 
about  the  oyster.  This,  however,  is  a  mere  nothing  of 
an  affair,  and  he  is  back  again  among  his  ships  at  the 
Portus  Itius  in  a  page  and  a  half. 

He  resolves  upon  taking  five  legions  of  his  own 


76 


THE  WAR  IN  GAEL.— FIFTH  BOOR. 


soldiers  into  Britain,  and  two  thousand  mounted  Gauls. 
He  had  brought  together  four  thousand  of  these  horse¬ 
men,  collected  from  all  Gaul,  their  chiefs  and  nobles, 
not  only  as  fighting  allies,  but  as  hostages  that  the 
tribes  should  not  rise  in  rebellion  while  his  back  was 
turned.  These  he  divides,  taking  half  with  him,  and 
leaving  half  with  three  legions  of  his  own  men,  under 
Labienus,  in  the  Boulogne  country,  as  a  base  to  his 
army,  to  look  after  the  provisions,  and  to  see  that  he 
be  not  harassed  on  his  return.  There  is  a  little 
affair,  however,  with  one  of  the  Gaulish  chieftains, 
Dumnorix  the  Hkluan,  who  ought  to  have  been 
his  fastest  friend.  Dumnorix  runs  away  with  all  the 
iEduan  horsemen.  Caesar,  however,  sends  after  him 
and  has  him  killed,  and  then  all  things  are  ready. 
He  starts  with  altogether  more  than  800  ships  at  sun¬ 
set,  and  comes  over  with  a  gentle  south-west  wind.  He 
arrives  off  the  coast  of  Britain  at  about  noon,  but  can 
see  none  of  the  inhabitants  on  the  cliff.  He  imagines 
that  they  have  all  fled,  frightened  by  the  number  of 
his  ships.  Caesar  establishes  his  camp,  and  proceeds 
that  same  night  about  twelve  miles  into  the  country, 
— eleven  miles,  we  may  say,  as  our  mile  is  longer  than 
the  Roman, — and  there  he  finds  the  Britons.  There  is 
some  fighting,  after  which  Caesar  returns  and  fortifies 
his  camp.  Then  there  comes  a  storm  and  knocks  his 
ships  about  terribly, — although  he  had  found,  as  he 
thought,  a  nice  soft  place  for  them.  But  the  tempest 
is  very  violent,  and  they  are  torn  away  from  their 
anchors,  and  thrust  upon  the  shore,  and  dashed  against 
each  other  till  there  is  infinite  trouble.  He  is  obliged 


CAESAR'S  SECOND  INVASION  OF  BRITAIN.  77 


to  send  over  to  Labienus,  telling  him  to  build  more 
ships ;  and  those  which  are  left  he  drags  up  over  the 
shore  to  his  camp,  in  spite  of  the  enormous  labour  re¬ 
quired  in  doing  it.  He  is  ten  days  at  this  work,  night 
and  day,  and  we  may  imagine  that  his  soldiers  had  not 
an  easy  time  of  it.  When  this  has  been  done,  he 
advances  again  into  the  country  after  the  enemy,  and 
finds  that  Cassivellaunus  is  in  command  of  the  united 
forces  of  the  different  tribes.  Cassivellaunus  comes 
from  the  other  side  of  the.  Thames,  over  in  Middlesex  or 
Hertfordshire.  The  Britons  had  not  hitherto  lived  very 
peaceably  together,  but  now  they  agree  that  against  the 
Romans  they  will  act  in  union  under  Cassivellaunus. 

Caesar’s  description  of  the  island  is  very  interesting. 
The  interior  is  inhabited  by  natives,  —  or  rather  by 
“  aborigines.”  Caesar  states  this  at  least  as  the  tra¬ 
dition  of  the  country.  But  the  maritime  parts  are 
held  by  Belgian  immigrants,  who,  for  the  most  part, 
have  brought  with  them  from  the  Continent  the  names 
of  their  tribes.  The  population  is  great,  and  the  houses, 
built  very  like  the  houses  in  Gaul,  are  numerous  and 
very  thick  together.  The  Britons  have  a  great  deal  of 
cattle.  They  use  money,  having  either  copper  coin  or 
iron  rings  of  a  great  weight.  Tin  is  found  in  the 
middle  of  the  island,  and,  about  the  coast,  iron. 
But  the  quantity  of  iron  found  is  small.  Brass  they 
import.  They  have  the  same  timber  as  in  Gaul, — only 
they  have  neither  beech  nor  fir.  Hares  and  chickens 
and  geese  they  think  it  wrong  to  eat ;  but  they  keep 
these  animals  as  pets.  The  climate,  on  the  whole,  is 
milder  than  in  Gaul.  The  island  is  triangular.  One 


78 


THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— FIFTH  BOOK. 


corner,  that  of  Kent,  has  an  eastern  and  a  southern 
aspect.  This  southern  side  of  the  island  he  makes 
500  miles,  exceeding  the  truth  by  about  150  miles. 
Then  Coesar  becomes  a  little  hazy  in  his  geography, — 
telling  us  that  the  other  side,  meaning  the  western 
line  of  the  triangle,  where  Ireland  lies,  verges  towards 
Spain.  Ireland,  he  says,  is  half  the  size  of  Britain,  and 
about  the  same  distance  from  it  that  Britain  is  from 
Gaul.  In  the  middle  of  the  channel  dividing  Ireland 
from  Britain  there  is  an  island  called  Mona, — the  Isle 
of  Man.  There  are  also  some  other  islands  which  at 
midwinter  have  thirty  continuous  days  of  night.  Here 
Caesar  becomes  not  only  hazy  but  mythic.  But  he 
explains  that  he  has  seen  nothing  of  this  himself, 
although  he  has  ascertained,  by  scientific  measurement, 
that  the  nights  in  Britain  are  shorter  than  on  the  Con¬ 
tinent.  Of  course  the  nights  are  shorter  with  us  in 
summer  than  they  are  in  Italy,  and  longer  in  winter. 
The  western  coast  he  makes  out  to  be  700  miles  long ; 
in  saying  which  he  is  nearly  100  miles  over  the  mark. 
The  third  side  he  describes  as  looking  towards  the 
north.  He  means  the  eastern  coast.  This  he  calls 
800  miles  long,  and  exaggerates  our  territories  by  more 
than  200  miles.  The  marvel,  however,  is  that  he  should 
be  so  near  the  truth.  The  men  of  Kent  are  the  most 
civilised :  indeed  they  are  almost  as  good  as  Gauls  in 
this  respect !  What  changes  does  not  time  make  in 
the  comparative  merits  of  countries  !  The  men  in  the 
interior  live  on  flesh  and  milk,  and  do  not  care  for  corn. 
They  wear  skin  clothing.  They  make  themselves  hor¬ 
rible  with  woad,  and  go  about  with  rery  long  hair. 


CjESAR'S  SECOND  INVASION  OF  BRITAIN .  79 


They  shave  close,  except  the  head  and  upper  lip. 
Then  comes  the  worst  liahit  of  all ; — ten  or  a  dozen 
men  have  their  wives  in  common  between  them. 

We  have  a  very  vivid  and  by  no  means  unflattering 
account  of  the  singular  agility  of  our  ancestors  in  their 
mode  of  fighting  from  their  chariots.  “  This,”  says 
Caesar,  “  is  the  nature  of  their  chariot-fighting.  They 
first  drive  rapidly  about  the  battle-field, — “per  omnes 
partes,” — and  throw  their  darts,  and  frequently  dis¬ 
order  the  ranks  by  the  very  terror  occasioned  by  the 
horses  and  by  the  noise  of  the  wheels  ;  and  when  they 
have  made  their  way  through  the  bodies  of  the  cavalry, 
they  jump  down  and  fight  on  foot.  Then  the  charioteers 
go  a  little  out  of  the  battle,  and  so  place  their  chariots 
that  they  may  have  a  ready  mode  of  returning  should 
their  friends  be  pressed  by  the  number  of  their  enemies. 
Thus  they  unite  the  rapidity  of  cavalry  and  the  stabil¬ 
ity  of  infantry;  and  so  effective  do  they  become  by  daily 
use  and  practice,  that  they  are  accustomed  to  keep  their 
horses,  excited  as  they  are,  on  their  legs  on  steep  and 
precipitous  ground,  and  to  manage  and  turn  them  very 
quickly,  and  to  run  along  the  pole  and  stand  upon  the 
yoke,” — by  which  the  horses  were  held  together  at  the 
collars, — “  and  again  with  the  greatest  rapidity  to  re¬ 
turn  to  the  chariot.”  *  All  which  is  very  wonderful. 

Of  course  there  is  a  great  deal  of  fighting,  and  the 

*  All  well-instructed  modern  Britons  have  learned  from  the 
old  authorities  that  the  Briton  war-chariots  were  furnished  with 
scythes  attached  to  the  axles, — from  Pomponius  Mela,  the  Roman 
geographer,  and  from  Mrs  Markham,  among  others.  And  Eugene 
Sue,  in  his  novel  translated  into  English  under  the  name  of  the 
1  Rival  Races,’  explains  how  the  Bretons  on  the  other  side  of 


80 


THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— FIFTH  BOOK. 


Britons  soon  learn  by  experience  to  avoid  general 
engagements  and  maintain  guerilla  actions.  Ccesar  by 
degrees  makes  his  way  to  the  Thames,  and  with  great 
difficulty  gets  his  army  over  it.  He  can  only  do  this 
at  one  place,  and  that  badly.  The  site  of  this  ford  he 
does  not  describe  to  us.  It  is  supposed  to  have  been 
near  the  place  which  we  now  know  as  Sunbury.  He 
does  tell  us  that  his  men  were  so  deep  in  the  water 
that  their  heads  only  were  above  the  stream.  But 
even  thus  they  were  so  impetuous  in  their  onslaught, 
that  the  Britons  would  not  wait  for  them  on  the 
opposite  bank,  but  ran  away.  Soon  there  come 
unconditional  surrender,  and  hostages,  and  promises 
of  tribute.  Cassivellaunus,  who  is  himself  but  a 
usurper,  and  therefore  has  many  enemies  at  home, 
endeavours  to  make  himself  secure  in  a  strong  place  or 
town,  which  is  supposed  to  have  been  on  or  near  the  site 
of  our  St  Albans.  Caesar,  however,  explains  that  the 
poor  Britons  give  the  name  of  a  town, — “  oppidum,” 
— to  a  spot  in  which  they  have  merely  surrounded 
some  thick  woods  with  a  ditch  and  rampart.  Caesar, 
of  course,  drives  them  out  of  their  woodland  fortress, 
and  then  there  quickly  follows  another  surrender,  more 
hostages,  and  the  demand  for  tribute.  Caesar  leaves 
his  orders  behind  him,  as  though  to  speak  were  to  be 
obeyed.  One  Mandubratius,  and  not  Cassivellaunus, 

the  water,  in  the  Morbihan,  used  these  scythes  ;  and  how,  before 
a  battle  with  Caesar's  legions,  the  wives  of  the  warriors  arranged 
the  straps  so  that  the  scythes  might  be  worked  from  the  chariot 
like  oars  from  a  boat.  But  Caesar  says  nothing  of  such  scythes, 
and  surely  he  would  have  done  so  had  he  seen  them.  The  readej 
must  choose  between  Caesar’s  silence  and  the  authority  of  Pom- 
ponius  Mela,  Mrs  Markham,  and  Eugene  Sue. 


CAESAR'S  SECOND  INVASION  OF  BRITAIN.  81 


is  to  be  tlie  future  king  in  Middlesex  and  Hertford¬ 
shire, — that  is,  over  the  Trinobantes  who  live  there. 
He  fixes  tlie  amount  of  tribute  to  be  sent  annually  by 
the  Britons  to  Rome ;  and  he  especially  leaves  orders 
that  Cassivellaunus  shall  do  no  mischief  to  the  young 
Mandubratius.  Then  he  crosses  back  into  Gaul  at  two 
trips, — his  ships  taking  half  the  army  first  and  coming 
back  for  the  other  half ;  and  he  piously  observes  that 
though  he  had  lost  many  ships  when  they  were  com¬ 
paratively  empty,  hardly  one  had  been  destroyed  while 
his  soldiers  were  in  them. 

So  was  ended  Caesar’s  second  and  last  invasion  of 
Britain.  That  he  had  reduced  Britain  as  he  had  re¬ 
duced  Gaul  he  certainly  could  not  boast ; — though 
Quintus  Cicero  had  written  to  his  brother  to  say  that 
Britannia  was,  —  “  confecta,” — finished.  Though  he 
had  twice  landed  his  army  under  the  white  cliffs,  and 
twice  taken  it  away  with  comparative  security,  he  had 
on  both  occasions  been  made  to  feel  how  terribly  strong 
an  ally  to  the  Britons  was  that  channel  which  divided 
them  from  the  Continent.  The  reader  is  made  to  feel 
that  on  both  occasions  the  existence  of  his  army  and  of 
himself  is  in  the  greatest  peril.  Caesar’s  idea  in  attack¬ 
ing  Britain  was  probably  rather  that  of  making  the 
Gauls  believe  that  his  power  could  reach  even  beyond 
them, — could  extend  itself  all  round  them,  even  into 
distant  islands, —  than  of  absolutely  establishing  the 
Roman  dominion  beyond  that  distant  sea.  The  Bri¬ 
tons  had  helped  the  Gauls  in  their  wars  with  him,  and 
it  was  necessary  that  he  should  punish  any  who  pre¬ 
sumed  to  give  such  help.  Whether  the  orders  which 

a.  c.  vol.  iv. 


F 


82 


THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— FIFTH  BOOK. 


he  left  behind  him  were  obeyed  we  do  not  know ; 
blit  we  may  imagine  that  the  tribute  exacted  was  not 
sent  to  home  with  great  punctuality.  In  fact,  Caesar 
invaded  the  island  twice,  but  did  not  reduce  it. 

On  his  return  to  Gaul,  nearly  at  the  close  of  the 
summer,  he  found  himself  obliged  to  distribute  his 
army  about  the  country  because  of  a  great  scarcity  of 
provisions.  There  had  been  a  drought,  and  the  crops 
had  failed.  Hitherto  he  had  kept  his  army  together 
during  the  winter;  now  he  was  obliged  to  divide  his 
legions,  placing  one  with  one  tribe,  and  another  with 
another.  A  legion  and  a  half  he  stations  under  two  of 
his  generals,  L.  Titurius  Sabinus,  and  L.  Aurunculeius 
Cotta,  among  the  Eburones,  who  live  on  the  banks  of  the 
Mouse  in  the  Liege  and  Namur  country, — a  very  stout 
people,  who  are  still  much  averse  to  the  dominion  of 
Rome.  In  this  way  he  thought  he  might  best  get  over 
that  difficulty  as  to  the  scarcity  of  provisions  ;  but  yet 
he  so  well  understood  the  danger  of  separating  his 
army,  that  he  is  careful  to  tell  us  that,  with  the  excep¬ 
tion  of  one  legion  which  he  had  stationed  in  a  very 
quiet  country, — among  the  Essui,  where  Alengon  now 
stands, — they  were  all  within  a  hundred  miles  of  each 
other.  Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  this  precaution,  there 
now  fell  upon  Caesar  the  greatest  calamity  which  he 
had  ever  yet  suffered  in  war. 

During  all  these  campaigns,  the  desire  of  the  Gauls 
to  free  themselves  from  the  power  and  the  tyranny  of 
Rome  never  ceased;  nor  did  their  intention  to  do  so 
ever  fade  away.  Caesar  must  have  been  to  them  as  a 
venomous  blight,  or  some  evil  divinity  sent  to  afflict 
them  for  causes  which  they  could  not  understand. 


HATRED  OF  THE  GAULS  TOWARDS  CJ2SAR.  83 


There  were  tribes  who  truckled  to  him,  hut  he  had  no 
real  friends  among  them.  If  any  Gauls  could  have 
loved  him,  the  AEdui  should  have  done  so  ;  hut  that 
Dumnorix,  the  iEduan,  who  ran  away  with  the  horse¬ 
men  of  his  trihe  when  he  was  wanted  to  help  in  the 
invasion  of  Britain,  had,  before  he  was  killed,  tried  to 
defend  himself,  asserting  vociferously  that  he  was  a 
free  man  and  belonging  to  a  free  state.  He  had  failed 
to  understand  that,  in  being  admitted  to  the  alliance 
of  Caesar,  he  was  bound  to  obey  Caesar.  Caesar  speaks 
of  it  all  with  his  godlike  simplicity,  as  though  he  saw 
nothing  ungodlike  in  the  work  he  was  doing.  There 
was  no  touch  of  remorse  in  him,  as  he  ordered  men  to. 
be  slaughtered  and  villages  to  be  burned.  He  was 
able  to  iook  at  those  things  as  trifles, — as  parts  of  a  great 
whole.  He  felt  no  more  than  does  the  gentleman  who 
sends  the  sheep  out  of  his  park  to  be  slaughtered  at 
the  appointed  time.  When  he  seems  to  be  most  cruel, 
it  is  for  the  sake  of  example, —  that  some  politic  result 
may  follow, — that  Gauls  may  know,  and  Italians  know 
also,  that  they  must  bow  the  knee  to  Caesar.  But  the 
heart  of  the  reader  is  made  to  bleed  as  he  sees  the 
unavailing  struggles  of  the  tribes.  One  does  not  spe¬ 
cially  love  the  AEdui ;  but  Dumnorix  protesting  that 
he  will  not  return,  that  he  is  a  free  man,  of  a  free 
atate,  and  then  being  killed,  is  a  man  to  be  loved. 
Among  the  Carnutes,  where  Chartres  now  stands, 
Caesar  has  set  up  a  pet  king,  one  Tasgetius ;  but  when 
Ca3sar  is  away  in  Britain,  the  Carnutes  kill  Tasgetius. 
They  will  have  no  pet  of  Caesar’s.  And  now  the  stout 
Eburones,  who  have  two  kings  of  their  cwn  over  them, 
Ambiorix  andCativolcus,  understanding  that  Caesar’s  d  if- 


84 


THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— FIFTH  BOOK. 


ficultyis  tlieir  opportunity, attack  the  Roman  camp, with 
its  legion  and  a  half  of  men  under  Titurius  and  Cotta. 

Ambiorix,  the  chieftain,  is  very  crafty.  He  persuades 
the  Roman  generals  to  send  ambassadors  to  him,  and 
to  these  he  tells  his  story.  He  himself,  Ambiorix,  loves 
Caesar  beyond  all  things.  Has  not  Caesar  done  him  great 
kindnesses?  He  would  not  willingly  lift  a  hand 
against  Caesar,  but  he  cannot  control  his  state.  The 
facts,  however,  are  thus ;  an  enormous  body  of  Ger¬ 
mans  has  crossed  the  Rhine,  and  is  hurrying  on  to 
destroy  that  Roman  camp;  and  it  certainly  will  be  de¬ 
stroyed,  so  great  is  the  number  of  the  Germans.  Thus 
says  Ambiorix ;  and  then  suggests  whether  it  would 
not  be  well  that  Titurius  and  Cotta  with  their  nine  or 
ten  thousand  men, — a  mere  handful  of  men  against  all 
these  Germans  who  are  already  over  the  Rhine ; — would 
it  not  be  well  that  the  Romans  should  go  and  join 
some  of  their  brethren,  either  the  legion  that  is  among 
the  Hervii  to  the  east,  under  Quintus  Cicero,  the 
brother  of  the  great  orator — or  that  other  legion  which 
Labienus  has,  a  little  to  the  south,  on  the  borders  of 
the  Remi  and  Treviri  ?  And  in  regard  to  a  good  turn 
on  his  own  part,  so  great  is  the  love  and  veneration 
which  he,  Ambiorix,  feels  for  Caesar,  that  he  is  quite 
ready  to  see  the  Romans  safe  through  the  territories  of 
the  Eburones.  He  begs  Titurius  and  Cotta  to  think 
of  this,  and  to  allow  him  to  aid  them  in  their  escape 
while  escape  is  possible.  The  two  Roman  generals  do 
think  of  it.  Titurius  thinks  that  it  will  be  well  to  take 
the  advice  of  Ambiorix.  Cotta,  and  with  him  many 
of  the  tribunes  and  centurions  of  the  soldiers,  think 
that  they  should  not  stir  without  Caesar’s  orders; — 


THE  SUCCESS  OF  AMBIORIX. 


85 


think  also  that  there  is  nothing  baser  or  more  foolish 
in  warfare  than  to  act  on  advice  given  by  an  enemy. 
Titurius,  however,  is  clear  for  going,  and  Cotta,  aftei 
much  argument  and  some  invective,  gives  way.  Early 
or  the  next  morning  they  all  leave  their  camp,  taking 
with  them  their  baggage,  and  marching  forth  as  though 
through  a  friendly  country, — apparently  with  belief  in 
the  proffered  friendship  of  Ambiorix.  The  Eburones 
had  of  course  prepared  an  ambush,  and  the  Roman 
army  is  attacked  both  behind  and  before,  and  is  thrown 
into  utter  confusion. 

The  legion,  or  legion  and  a  half,  with  its  two  com¬ 
manders,  is  altogether  destroyed.  Titurius  goes  out 
from  his  ranks  to  meet  Ambiorix,  and  pray  for  peace. 
He  is  told  to  throw  away  his  arms,  and  submitting  to 
the  disgrace,  casts  them  down.  Then,  while  Ambiorix 
is  making  a  long  speech,  the  Roman  general  is  sur¬ 
rounded  and  slaughtered.  Cotta  is  killed  fighting; 
as  also  are  more  than  half  the  soldiers.  The  rest  get 
back  into  the  camp  at  night,  and  then,  despairing  of 
any  safety,  overwhelmed  with  disgrace,  conscious  that 
there  is  no  place  for  hope,  they  destroy  themselves. 
Only  a  few  have  escaped  during  the  fighting  to  tell  the 
tale  in  the  camp  of  Labienus. 

As  a  rule  the  reader’s  sympathies  are  with  the  Gauls  ; 
but  we  cannot  help  feeling  a  certain  regret  that  a 
Roman  legion  should  have  thus  been  wiled  on  to  de¬ 
struction  through  the  weakness  of  its  general.  It 
Titurius  could  have  been  made  to  suffer  alone  we  should 
bear  it  better.  When  we  are  told  how  the  gallant 
eagle-bearer,  Petrosidius,  throws  his  eagle  into  the  ram¬ 
part,  and  then  dies  fighting  before  the  camp,  we  wish 


80 


THE  WAR  IN  OA  UL.--F1FTH  BOOK. 


that  Amhiorix  had  been  less  successful.  Of  this,  how¬ 
ever,  we  feel  quite  certain,  that  there  will  come  a  day, 
and  that  soon,  in  which  Caesar  will  exact  punishment. 

Having  done  so  much,  Amhiorix  and  the  Eburones 
do  not  desist.  How,  if  ever,  after  so  great  a  disgrace, 
and  with  legions  still  scattered,  may  Caesar  he  worsted. 
Q.  Cicero  is  with  his  legion  among  the  Uervii,  and 
thither  Amhiorix  goes.  The  Hervii  are  quite  ready, 
and  Cicero  is  attacked  in  his  camp.  And  here,  too, 
for  a  long  while  it  goes  very  badly  with  the  Romans  ; — 
so  badly  that  Cicero  is  hardly  able  to  hold  his  ramparts 
against  the  attacks  made  upon  them  by  the  barbarians. 
Red-hot  balls  of  clay  and  hot  arrows  are  thrown  into 
the  camp,  and  there  is  a  fire.  The  messengers  sent  to 
Caesar  for  help  are  slain  on  the  road,  and  the  Romans 
begin  to  think  that  there  is  hardly  a  chance  for  them 
of  escape.  Unless  Caesar  be  with  them  they  are  not  safe. 
All  their  power,  their  prestige,  their  certainty  of  con¬ 
quest,  lies  in  Caesar.  Cicero  behaves  like  a  prudent 
and  a  valiant  man  ;  but  unless  he  had  at  last  succeeded 
in  getting  a  Gaulish  slave  to  take  a  letter  concealed  in 
a  dart  to  Caesar,  the  enemy  would  have  destroyed  him. 

There  is  a  little  episode  of  two  Roman  centurions, 
Pulfius  and  Varenus,  who  were  always  quarrelling  as  to 
which,  was  the  better  man  of  the  two.  Pulfius  with 
much  bravado  rushes  out  among  the  enemy,  and 
Varenus  follows  him.  Pulfius  gets  into  trouble,  and 
Varenus  rescues  him.  Then  Varenus  is  in  a  difficulty, 
and  Pulfius  comes  to  his  assistance.  According  to  all 
chances  of  war,  both  should  have  been  killed  ;  but 
both  get  back  safe  into  the  camp  ; — and  nobody  knows 
from  that  day  to  this  which  was  the  better  man. 


THE  DANGER  OF  QUINTUS  CICERO . 


87 


Caesar,  of  course,  hastens  to  the  assistance  of  his  lieu¬ 
tenant,  having  sent  word  of  his  coming  by  a  letter 
fastened  to  another  dart,  which,  however,  hardly 
reaches  Cicero  in  time  to  comfort  him  before  he  sees 
the  fires  by  which  the  coming  legions  wasted  the 
country  along  their  line  of  march.  Then  there  is 
more  fighting.  Caesar  conquers,  and  Q.  Cicero  is  rescued 
from  his  very  disagreeable  position.  Labienus  has 
also  been  in  difficulty,  stationed,  as  we  remember,  on 
the  borders  of  the  Treviri.  The  Treviri  were  quite 
as  eager  to  attack  him  as  the  Eburones  and  ETervii  to 
destroy  the  legions  left  in  their  territories.  But  before 
the  attack  is  made,  the  news  of  Caesar’s  victory,  travel¬ 
ling  with  wonderful  speed,  is  heard  of  in  those  parts, 
and  the  Treviri  think  it  best  to  leave  Labienus  alone. 

But  Caesar  has  perceived  that,  although  lie  has  so 
often  boasted  that  all  Gaul  was  at  last  at  peace,  all  Gaul 
is  prepared  to  carry  on  the  war  against  him.  It  is 
during  this  winter  that  he  seems  to  realize  a  conviction 
that  his  presence  in  the  country  is  not  popular  with  the 
Gauls  in  general,  and  that  he  lias  still  much  to  do 
before  he  can  make  them  understand  that  they  are  not 
free  men,  belonging  to  free  states.  The  opposition  to 
him  has  become  so  general  that  he  himself  determines 
to  remain  in  Gaul  all  the  winter ;  and  even  after  tell¬ 
ing  us  of  the  destruction  of  Indutioniarus,  the  chief  of 
the  Treviri, by  Labienus,  he  can  only  boast  that — “Caesar 
had,  after  that  was  done,  Gaul  a  little  quieter,” — a 
little  more  like  a  subject  country  bound  hand  and  toot, 
— than  it  was  before.  During  this  year  Caesar’s  pro¬ 
consular  power  over  his  provinces  was  extended  for  a 
second  period  of  five  years. 


CHAPTER  YII. 


SIXTH  BOOK  OF  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL. — CAESAR  PURSUES  AMBIORIX. 

— THE  MANNERS  OF  THE  GAULS  AND  OF  THE  GERMANS  ARE 

CONTRASTED. — B.  C.  53. 

CiESAR  begins  tne  next  campaign  before  the  winter 
is  over,  having,  as  we  have  seen,  been  forced  to  con¬ 
tinue  the  last  long  after  the  winter  had  commenced. 
The  Gauls  were  learning  to  unite  themselves,  and 
things  were  becoming  very  serious  with  him.  One 
Roman  army,  with  probably  ten  thousand  men,  had 
been  absolutely  destroyed,  with  its  generals  Titurius 
Sabinus  and  Aurunculeius  Cotta.  Another  under 
Quintus  Cicero  would  have  suffered  the  same  Tate, 
but  for  Caesar’s  happy  intervention.  A  third  under 
Labienus  had  been  attached.  All  Gaul  had  been 
under  arms,  or  thinking  of  arms,  in  the  autumn ;  and 
though  Caesar  had  been  able  to  report  at  the  end  of  the 
campaign  that  Gaul, — his  Gaul,  as  he  intended  that  it 
should  be, — was  a  little  quieter,  nevertheless  he  under¬ 
stood  well  that  he  still  had  his  work  to  do  before  he 
could  enter  upon  possession.  He  had  already  been  the 
master  of  eight  legions  in  Gaul,  containing  48,000  foot- 
soldiers,  levied  on  the  Italian  side  of  the  Alps.  He 


CAESAR  RECRUITS  I1IS  ARMY. 


89 


had  added  to  this  a  large  body  of  Gaulish  cavalry  and 
light  infantry,  over  and  above  his  eight  legions.  He 
had  now  lost  an  entire  legion  and  a  half,  besides 
the  gaps  which  must  have  been  made  in  Britain, 
and  by  the  loss  of  those  who  had  fallen  when  attacked 
under  Cicero  by  the  Hervii.  But  he  would  show  the 
Gauls  that  when  so  treated  he  could  begin  again,  not 
only  with  renewed  but  with  increased  force.  He  would 
astound  them  by  his  display  of  Roman  power,  “  think¬ 
ing  that,  for  the  future,  it  would  greatly  affect  the  opin¬ 
ion  of  Gaul  that  the  power  of  Italy  should  be  seen  to  be 
so  great  that,  if  any  reverse  in  war  were  suffered,  not 
only  could  the  injury  be  cured  in  a  short  time,  but 
that  the  loss  .  could  be  repaired  even  by  increased 
forces.”  He  not  only  levies  fresh  troops,  but  borrows 
a  legion  which  Pompey  commands  outside  the  walls 
of  Rome.  He  tells  us  that  Pompey  yields  his  legion 
to  the  “Republic  and  to  Friendship.”  The  Triumvi¬ 
rate  was  still  existing,  and  Ctesar’s  great  colleague 
probably  felt  that  he  had  no  alternative.  In  this  way 
Caesar  not  only  re-established  the  legion  which  had 
been  annihilated,  but  completes  the  others,  and  takes 
the  field  with  two  new  legions  added  to  his  army.  He 
probably  now  had  as  many  as  eighty  thousand  men 
under  his  command. 

He  first  makes  a  raid  against  our  old  Iriends  the 
FTervii,  who  had  nearly  conquered  Cicero  before 
Christmas,  and  who  were  already  conspiring  again 
with  certain  German  and  neighbouring  Belgian  tribes. 
The  reader  will  perhaps  remember  that  in  the  second 
book  this  tribe  was  said  to  have  been  so  utterly  de- 


90 


THE  WAR  IN  G A  UL. —SIXTH  BOOK. 


etroyed  that  hardly  their  name  remained.  That,  no 
doubt,  was  Csesar’s  belief  after  the  great  slaughter. 
There  had  been,  however,  enough  of  them  left  nearly 
to  destroy  Q.  Cicero  and  his  legion.  Then  Caesar  goes 
to  Paris, — Lutetia  Parisiorum,  of  which  we  now  hear 
for  the  first  time, — and,  with  the  help  of  his  friends 
the  HMui  and  the  Pemi,  makes  a  peace  with  the 
centre  tribes  of  Gaul,  the  Senones  and  Carnutes. 
Then  he  resolves  upon  attacking  Ambiorix  with  all 
his  heart  and  soul.  Ambiorix  had  destroyed  his 
legion  and  killed  his  two  generals,  and  against 
Ambiorix  he  must  put  forth  all  his  force.  It  is 
said  that  when  Caesar  first  heard  of  that  misfortune 
he  swore  that  he  would  not  cut  his  hair  or  shave 
himself  till  he  was  avenged.  Put  he  feels  that  he 
must  first  dispose  of  those  who  would  naturally  be 
the  allies  of  this  much-to-be-persecuted  enemy.  The 
Menapii,  with  whom  we  may  remember  that  he  had 
never  quite  settled  matters  in  his  former  war,  and 
who  live  on  the  southern  banks  of  the  Meuse  not  far 
from  the  sea,  have  not  even  yet  sent  to  him  messen¬ 
gers  to  ask  for  peace.  He  burns  their  villages,  takes 
their  cattle,  makes  slaves  of  the  men,  and  then  binds 
them  by  hostages  to  have  no  friendship  with  Am¬ 
biorix.  In  the  mean  time  Labienus  utterly  defeats  the 
great  north-eastern  tribe,  the  Treviri,  whom  he  cun¬ 
ningly  allures  into  fighting  just  before  they  are  joined 
by  certain  Germans  who  are  coming  to  aid  them. 
“  Quern  Deus  vult  perdere  prius  dementat.”  These 
unfortunate  Gauls  and  Germans  fall  into  every  trap 
that  is  laid  for  them.  The  speech  which  Ca?sar  quotes 


CAESAR  BUILDS  A  SECOND  BRIDGE. 


91 


as  having  been  made  by  Labienus  to  his  troops  on 
this  occasion  is  memorable.  “Now,”  says  Labienus, 
“  you  have  your  opportunity.  You  have  got  your 
enemy  thoroughly  at  advantage.  That  valour  which 
you  have  so  often  displayed  before  the  1  Imperator/ 
CaBsar,  display  now  under  my  command.  Think  that 
Caesar  is  present,  and  that  he  beholds  you.”  To  have 
written  thus  of  himself  Caesar  must  have  thought  of 
himself  as  of  a  god.  He  tells  the  story  as  though 
it  were  quite  natural  that  Labienus  and  the  soldiers 
should  so  regard  him. 

After  this  battle,  in  which  the  Treviri  are  of  course 
slaughtered,  Caesar  makes  a  second  bridge  over  the 
Rhine,  somewhat  above  the  spot  at  which  he  had 
crossed  before.  He  does  this,  he  says,  for  two  reasons, 
— first,  because  the  Germans  had  sent  assistance  to 
the  Hervii ;  and  secondly,  lest  his  gieat  enemy  Am- 
biorix  should  find  shelter  among  the  Suevi.  Then  he 
suggests  that  the  opportunity  is  a  good  one  for  saying 
something  to  his  readers  of  the  different  manners  of 
Gaul  and  of  Germany.  Among  the  Gauls,  in  their 
tribes,  their  villages,  and  even  in  their  families,  there 
are  ever  two  factions,  so  that  one  should  always 
balance  the  other,  and  neither  become  superior.  Caesar 
so  tells  us  at  this  particular  point  of  his  narrative, 
because  he  is  anxious  to  go  back  and  explain  how  it 
was  that  he  had  taken  the  part  of  the  iEdui,  and  hg.d 
first  come  into  conflict  with  the  Germans,  driving 
Ariovistus  back  across  the  Rhine  for  their  sake.  In 
eastern  Gaul  two  tribes  had  long  balanced  each  other, 
nach,  of  course,  striving  for  mastery, — the  iEdui  and 


92 


TEE  WAR  IN  GAUL.—S1XTU  BOOK. 


the  Sequani.  The  Sequani  had  called  in  the  aid  of 
the  Germans,  and  the  iEdui  had  been  very  hardly 
treated.  In  their  sufferings  they  had  appealed  to 
Rome,  having  had  former  relations  of  close  amity  with 
the  Republic.  Divitiacus,  their  chief  magistrate, — the 
brother  of  Dumnorix  who  was  afterwards  killed  by 
Caesar’s  order  for  running  away  with  the  ASduan 
cavalry  before  the  second  invasion  of  Britain, — had 
lived  for  a  while  in  Rome,  and  had  enjoyed  Roman 
friendships,  that  of  Cicero  among  others.  There  was 
a  good  deal  of  doubt  in  Rome  as  to  what  should  be 
done  with  these  Afdui ;  but  at  last,  as  we  know,  Caesar 
decided  on  taking  their  part ;  and  we  know  also  how  he 
drove  Ariovistus  back  into  Germany,  with  the  loss  of 
his  wives  and  daughters.  Thus  it  came  to  pass,  Caesar 
tells  us,  that  the  AEdui  were  accounted  first  of  all  the 
Gauls  in  regard  to  friendship  with  Rome ;  while  the 
Remi,  who  came  to  his  assistance  so  readily  when  the 
Belgians  were  in  arms  against  him,  were  allowed  the 
second  place. 

Among  the  Gauls  there  are,  he  says,  two  classes  of 
men  held  in  honour, — the  Druids  and  the  knights  ;  by 
which  we  understand  that  two  professions  or  modes  of 
life,  and  two  only,  were  open  to  the  nobility, — the  priest¬ 
hood  and  the  army.  All  the'  common  people,  Csesar 
says,  are  serfs,  or  little  better.  They  do  not  hesitate, 
when  oppressed  by  debt  or  taxation,  or  the  fear  of 
some  powerful  enemy,  to  give  themselves  into  slavery, 
loving  the  protection  so  obtained.  The  Druids  have 
the  chief  political  authority,  and  can  maintain  it  by 
the  dreadful  power  of  excommunication.  The  cxcom- 


MANNERS  OF  THE  GAULS. 


93 


municated  wretch  is  an  outlaw,  beyond  the  pale  of 
civil  rights.  Over  the  Druids  is  one  great  Druid,  at 
whose  death  the  place  is  filled  by  election  among  all 
the  Druids,  unless  there  be  one  so  conspicuously  first 
that  no  ceremony  of  election  is  needed.  Their  most 
sacred  spot  for  worship  is  among  the  Carnutes,  in  the 
middle  of  the  country.  Their  discipline  and  mys¬ 
teries  came  to  them  from  Britain,  and  when  any  very 
knotty  point  arises  they  go  to  Britain  to  make  inquiry. 
The  Druids  don’t  fight,  and  pay  no  taxes.  The  ambi¬ 
tion  to  be  a  Druid  is  very  great ;  but  then  so  is  the 
difficulty.  Twenty  years  of  tuition  is  not  uncommonly 
needed  ;  for  everything  has  to  be  learned  by  heart.  Of 
their  religious  secrets  nothing  may  be  written.  Their 
great  doctrine  is  the  transmigration  of  souls  ;  so  that 
men  should  believe  that  the  soul  never  dies,  and  that 
death,  therefore,  or  that  partial  death  which  we  see, 
need  not  be  feared.  They  are  great  also  in  astronomy, 
geography,  natural  history, — and  general  theology,  of 
course. 

The  knights,  or  nobles,  have  no  resource  but  to 
fight.  Caesar  suggests  that  before  the  blessing  of  his 
advent  they  were  driven  to  the  disagreeable  necessity 
of  fighting  yearly  with  each  other.  Of  all  people  the 
Gauls,  he  says,  are  the  most  given  to  superstition ;  in 
so  much  so,  that  in  all  dangers  and  difficulties  they 
have  recourse'to  human  sacrifices,  in  which  the  Druids 
are  their  ministers.  They  burn  their  victims  to 
appease  their  deities,  and,  by  preference,  will  bum 
thieves  and  murderers,  —  the  gods  loving  best  such 
polluted  victims, — but,  in  default  of  such,  will  have 


94 


THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— SIXTH  BOOK. 


recourse  to  an  immolation  of  innocents.  Then  Csesar 
tells  us  that  among  the  gods  they  chiefly  worship 
Mercury,  whom  they  seem  to  have  regarded  as  the 
cleverest  of  the  gods ;  hut  they  also  worship  Apollo, 
Mars,  Jove,  and  Minerva,  ascribing  to  them  the  attri¬ 
butes  which  are  allowed  them  by  other  nations.  How 
the  worship  of  the  Greek  and  Eoman  gods  became 
mingled  with  the  religion  of  the  Druids  we  are  not 
told,  nor  does  Caesar  express  surprise  that  it  should 
have  been  so.  Caesar  gives  the  Eoman  names  of 
these  gods,  but  he  does  not  intend  us  to  understand 
that  they  were  so  called  by  the  Gauls,  who  had  their 
own  names  for  their  deities.  The  trophies  of  war 
they  devote  to  Mars,  and  in  many  states  keep  large 
stores  of  such  consecrated  spoils.  It  is  not  often 
that  a  Gaul  will  commit  the  sacrilege  of  appropri¬ 
ating  to  his  own  use  anything  thus  made  sacred ; 
but  the  punishment  of  such  offence,  when  it  is  com¬ 
mitted,  is  death  by  torture.  There  is  the  greatest 
veneration  from  sons  to  their  fathers.  Until  the 
son  can  bear  arms  he  does  not  approach  his  father, 
or  even  stand  in  public  in  his  presence.  The  hus¬ 
band’s  fortune  is  made  to  equal  the  wife’s  dowry,  and 
then  the  property  is  common  between  them.  This 
seems  well  enough,  and  the  law  would  suit  the  views 
of  British  wives  of  the  present  day.  But  the  next 
Gaulish  custom  is  not  so  well  worthy  of  example. 
Husbands  have  the  power  of  life  and  death  over  their 
wives  and  children  ;  and  when  any  man  of  mark  dies,  if 
there  be  cause  for  suspicion,  his  wives  are  examined 
under  torture,  and  if  any  evil  practice  be  confessed,  they 


MANNERS  OF  THE  GERMANS. 


95 


are  then  tortured  to  death.  We  learn  from  this  passage 
that  polygamy  was  allowed  among  the  Gauls.  The 
Gauls  have  grand  funerals.  Things  which  have  been 
dear  to  the  departed  are  burned  at  these  ceremonies. 
Animals  were  thus  burned  in  Ciesar’s  time,  but  in 
former  days  slaves  also,  and  dependants  who  had  been 
specially  loved.  The  best-governed  states  are  very 
particular  in  not  allowing  rumours  as  to  state  affairs  to 
be  made  matter  of  public  discussion.  Anything  heard 
is  to  be  told  to  the  magistrate ;  but  there  is  to  be  no 
discussion  on  public  affairs  except  in  the  public  coum 
cil.  So  much  we  hear  of  the  customs  of  the  Gauls. 

The  Germans  differ  from  the  Gauls  in  many  things. 
They  know  nothing  of  Druids,  nor  do  they  care  for 
sacrifices.  They  worship  only  what  they  see  and 
enjoy, — the  sun,  and  fire,  and  the  moon.  They  spend 
their  time  in  hunting  and  war,  and  care  little  for 
agriculture.  They  live  on  milk,  cheese,  and  flesh. 
They  are  communists  as  to  the  soil,  and  stay  no 
longer  than  a  year  on  the  same  land.  These  customs 
they  follow  lest  they  should  learn  to  prefer  agriculture 
to  war ;  lest  they  should  grow  fond  of  broad  posses¬ 
sions,  so  that  the  rich  should  oppress  the  poor ;  lest 
they  should  by  too  much  comfort  become  afraid  of 
cold  and  heat ;  lest  the  love  of  money  should  grow 
among  them,  and  one  man  should  seek  to  be  higher 
than  another. '  From  all  which  it  seems  that  the 
Germans  were  not  without  advanced  ideas  in  political 
economy. 

It  is  a  great  point  witn  tne  Germans  to  have  no 
near  neighbours.  For  the  sake  of  safety  and  inde- 


96 


THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— SIXTH  BOOK. 


pendence,  each  tribe  loves  to  have  a  wide  margin.  In 
war  the  chieftains  have  power  of  life  and  death.  In 
time  of  peace  there  are  no  appointed  magistrates,  but 
the  chiefs  in  the  cantons  declare  justice  and  quell 
litigation  as  well  as  they  can.  Thieving  in  a  neigh¬ 
bouring  state, — not  in  his  own, — is  honourable  to  a 
Gc-rman.  Expeditions  for  thieving  are  formed,  which 
men  may  join  or  not  as  they  please  ;  but  woe  betide 
him  who,  having  promised,  fails.  They  are  good  to 
travelling  strangers.  There  was  a  time  when  the 
Gauls  were  better  men  than  the  Germans,  and  could 
come  into  Germany  and  take  German  land.  Even 
now.  says  Ctesar,  there  are  Gaulish  tribes  living  in 
Germany  after  German  fashion.  But  the  nearness  of 
the  Province  to  Gaul  has  taught  the  Gauls  luxury,  and 
so  it  has  come  to  pass  that  the  Gauls  are  not  as  good 
in  battle  as  they  used  to  be.  It  is  interesting  to 
gather  from  all  these  notices  the  progress  of  civilisa¬ 
tion  through  the  peoples  of  Europe,  and  some  hint 
as  to  what  has  been  thought  to  be  good  and  bad 
for  humanity  by  various  races  before  the  time  of 
Christ. 

Cmsar  then  tells  us  of  a  great  Hercynian  forest, 
beginning  from  the  north  of  Switzerland  and  stretch¬ 
ing  away  to  the  Danube.  A  man  in  nine  days  would 
traverse  its  breadth;  but  even  in  sixty  days  a  man 
could  not  get  to  the  end  of  it  lengthwise.  "We  may 
presume  that  the  Black  Forest  was  a  portion  of  it.  It 
contains  many  singular  beasts, — bisons  with  one  horn; 
elks,  which  are  like  great  stags,  but  which  have  no 
joints  in  their  legs,  and  cannot  lie  down, —  nor,  if 


CAESAR  PURSUES  AM BI ORIX. 


97 


knocked  down,  can  they  get  up, — which  sleep  leaning 
against  trees ;  hut  the  trees  sometimes  break,  and 
then  the  elk  falls  and  has  a  bad  time  of  it.  Then 
there  is  the  urus,  almost  as  big  as  an  elephant,  which 
spares  neither  man  nor  beast.  It  is  a  great  thing  to 
kill  a  urus,  but  no  one  can  tame  them,  even  when 
young.  The  Germans  are  fond  of  mounting  the  horns 
of  this  animal  with  silver,  and  using  them  for  drinking- 
cups. 

Caesar  does  very  little  over  among  the  Germans. 
He  comes  back,  partly  destroys  his  bridge,  and  starts 
again  in  search  of  Ambiorix.  His  lieutenant  Basilus 
nearly  takes  the  poor  hunted  chieftain,  but  Ambiorix 
escapes,  and  Caesar  moralises  about  fortune.  Ambi- 
orix,  the  reader  will  remember,  was  joint-king  over 
the  Eburones  with  one  Cativolcus.  Cativolcus,  who  is 
old,  finding  how  his  people  are  harassed,  curses  his 
brother  king  who  has  brought  these  sorrows  on  the 
nation,  and  poisons  himself  with  the  juice  of  yew- 
tree. 

All  the  tribes  in  the  Belgic  country,  Gauls  as  well 
as  Germans,  were  now  very  much  harassed.  They  all 
had  helped,  or  might  have  helped,  or,  if  left  to  them¬ 
selves,  might  at  some  future  time  give  help  to  Ambi¬ 
orix  and  the  Eburones.  Caesar  divides  his  army,  but 
still  goes  himself  in  quest  of  his  victim  into  the  damp, 
uncomfortable  countries  near  the  mouths  of  the  Scheldt 
and  Meuse.  Here  he  is  much  distracted  between  his 
burning  desire  to  extirpate  that  race  of  wicked  men 
over  whom  Ambiorix  had  been  king,  and  his  anxiety 
lest  he  should  lose  more  of  his  own  men  in  the  work 

a.  o.  vol.  iv.  G 


98 


TIIE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— SIXTH  BOOK. 


than  the  wicked  race  is  worth.  He  invites  the  neigh¬ 
bouring  Gauls  to  help  him  in  the  work,  so  that  Gauls 
should  perish  in  those  inhospitable  regions  rather  than 
his  own  legionaries.  This,  however,  is  fixed  in  his 
mind,  that  a  tribe  which  has  been  guilty  of  so  terrible 
an  offence, — which  has  destroyed  in  war  an  army  of 
his,  just  as  he  would  have  delighted  to  destroy  a 
Gaulish  army, — must  be  extirpated,  so  that  its  very 
name  may  cease  to  exist !  “  Pro  tali  facinore,  stirps  ac 

nomen  civitatis  tollatur.” 

Caesar,  in  dividing  his  army,  had  stationed  Q. 
Cicero  with  one  legion  and  the  heavy  baggage  and 
spoils  of  the  army,  in  a  fortress  exactly  at  that  spot 
from  which  Titurius  Sabinus  had  been  lured  by  the 
craft  of  Ambiorix.  Certain  Germans,  the  Sigambri, 
having  learned  that  all  the  property  of  the  Eburones 
had  been  given  up  by  Caesar  as  a  prey  to  any  who 
would  take  it,  had  crossed  the  Rhine  that  they  might 
thus  fill  their  hands.  But.it  is  suggested  to  them 
that  they  may  fill  their  hands  much  fuller  by  attack¬ 
ing  Q.  Cicero  in  his  camp ;  and  they  do  attack  him, 
when  the  best  part  of  his  army  is  away  looking  for 
provisions.  That  special  spot  in  the  territory  of  the 
Eburones  is  again  nearly  fatal  to  a  Roman  legion. 
But  the  Germans,  not  knowing  how  to  press  the 
advantage  they  gain,  return  with  their  spoil  across  the 
Rhine,  and  Caesar  again  comes  up  like  a  god.  But  he 
has  not  as  yet  destroyed  Ambiorix, — who  indeed  is 
not  taken  at  last, — and  expresses  his  great  disgust  and 
amazement  that  the  coming  of  these  Germans,  which 
was  planned  with  the  view  of  injuring  Ambiorix, 


AMBIORIX  ESCAPES. 


90 


should  have  done  instead  so  great  a  service  to  that 
monstrously  wicked  chieftain. 

He  does  his  very  best  to  catch  Ambiorix  in  person, 
offering  great  rewards  and  inducing  his  men  to  undergo 
all  manner  of  hardships  in  the  pursuit.  Ambiorix, 
however,  with  three  or  four  chosen  followers,  escapes 
him.  But  Csesar  is  not  without  revenge.  He  burns 
all  the  villages  of  the  Eburones,  and  all  their  houses. 
He  so  lays  waste  the  country  that  even  when  his  army 
is  gone  not  a  soul  should  be  able  to  live  there.  After 
that  he  probably  allowed  himself  to  be  shaved.  Am¬ 
biorix  is  seen  here  and  is  seen  there,  but  with  hair¬ 
breadth  chances  eludes  his  pursuer.  Csesar,  having 
thus  failed,  returns  south,  as  winter  approaches,  to 
Rheims, — Durocortorum ;  and  just  telling  us  in  four 
words  how  he  had  one  Acco  tortured  to  death  because 
Acco  had  headed  a  conspiracy  in  the  middle  of  Gaul 
among  the  Carnutes  and  Sen  ones,  and  how  he  out¬ 
lawed  and  banished  others  whom  he  could  not  catch, 
he  puts  his  legions  into  winter  quarters,  and  again 
goes  back  to  Italy  to  hold  assizes  and  look  after  Ids 
interests  amid  the  great  affairs  of  the  Republic. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


8EVENTH  BOOK  OF  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL. — THE  REVOLT 
OF  VERCINGETORIX. — B.C.  52. 

In  opening  his  account  of  his  seventh  campaign  Caesar 
makes  almost  the  only  reference  to  the  affairs  of  Rome 
which  we  find  in  these  memoirs.  Clodius  has  been 
murdered.  We  know,  too,  that  Crassus  had  been  killed 
at  the  head  of  his  army  in  the  east,  and  that,  at  the  death 
of  Clodius,  Pompey  had  been  created  Dictator  in  the 
city  with  the  name  of  sole  Consul.  Caesar,  however, 
only  mentions  the  murder  of  Clodius,  and  then  goes  on 
to  say  that  the  Gauls,  knowing  how  important  to  him 
must  he  the  affairs  of  Rome  at  this  moment,  think  that 
he  cannot  now  attend  to  them,  and  that,  in  his  absence, 
they  may  shake  off  the  Roman  yoke.  The  affairs  of 
Rome  must  indeed  have  been  important  to  Caesar,  if, 
as  no  doubt  is  true,  he  had  already  before  liis  eyes  a 
settled  course  of  action  by  which  to  make  himself  su¬ 
preme  in  the  Republic.  Clodius,  the  demagogue,  was 
dead,  whom  he  never  could  have  loved,  but  whom  it 
had  not  suited  him  to  treat  as  an  enemy.  Crassus,  too, 
was  dead,  whom,  on  account  of  his  wealth,  Caesar  had 
admitted  as  a  colleague.  Pompey,  the  third  triumvir, 


THE  REVOLT  OF  VERCINGETORIX.  101 


remained  at  Rome,  and  was  now  sole  Consul ;  Pom. 
pey  who,  only  twelve  months  since,  had  so  fondly 
given  up  his  legion  for  the  sake  of  the  Republic, — and 
for  friendship.  Caesar,  no  doubt,  foresaw  by  this  time 
that  the  struggle  must  be  at  last  between  himself  and 
Pompey.  The  very  forms  of  the  old  republican  rule 
were  being  turned  adrift,  and  Caesar  must  have  known, 
as  Pompey  also  knew,  and  Clodius  had  known,  and 
even  Crassus,  that  a  new  power  would  become  para¬ 
mount  in  the  city.  But  the  hands  to  wrest  such  power 
must  be  very  strong.  And  the  day  had  not  yet  quite 
come.  Having  spent  six  summers  in  subduing  Gaul, 
Caesar  would  not  lose  the  prestige,  the  power,  the  sup- 
port,  which  such  a  territory,  really  subdued,  would  give 
him.  Things,  doubtless,  were  important  at  Rome,  but 
it  was  still  his  most  politic  course  to  return  over  the 
Alps  and  complete  his  work.  Before  the  winter  was 
over  he  heard  that  the  tribes  were  conspiring,  because 
it  was  thought  that  at  such  an  emergency  Caesar  could 
not  leave  Italy. 

This  last  book  of  the  Commentary,  as  written  by 
Caesar,  tells  the  story  of  the  gallant  Vercingetorix,  one 
of  the  Arverni, — the  modern  Auvergne, — whose  father, 
Celtillus,  is  said  to  have  sought  the  chieftainship  of  all 
Gaul,  and  to  have  been  killed  on  that  account  by  his 
own  state.  Vercingetorix  is  certainly  the  hero  of  these 
wars  on  the  Gaulish  side,  though  we  hear  nothing  of 
him  till  this  seventh  campaign.  The  conspiracy  against 
Rome  is  afloat,  the  Carnutes.  whose  chief  town  is  Gena- 
bum, — Orleans, — having  commenced  it.  Vercingetorix 
excites  his  own  countrymen  to  join,  but  is  expelled  from 


102  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— SEVENTH  BOOK. 


their  town,  Gergovia,  for  the  attempt.  The  Arverni,  oi 
at  least  their  chief  men,  fear  to  oppose  the  Romans ; 
hut  Vercingetorix  obtains  a  crowd  of  followers  out  in 
the  country,  and  perseveres.  Men  of  other  tribes  come 
to  him,  from  as  far  north  as  Paris,  and  west  from  the 
Ocean.  He  assumes  supreme  power,  and  enacts  and 
carries  out  most  severe  laws  for  his  guidance  during  the 
war.  Por  any  greater  offence  he  burns  the  offender 
alive  and  subjects  him  to  all  kinds  of  torments.  Por 
any  small  fault  he  cuts  off  a  man’s  ears,  pokes  out  one 
of  his  eyes,  and  sends  him  home,  that  he  may  be  an 
example  visible  to  all  men.  By  threats  of  such  pun¬ 
ishment  to  those  who  do  not  join  him,  and  by  inflict¬ 
ing  such  on  those  who  do  and  are  then  untrue  to  him 
or  lukewarm,  he  gets  together  a  great  army.  Caesar, 
who  is  still  in  Italy,  hears  of  all  this,  and  having  made 
things  comfortable  with  Pompey,  hurries  into  the  pro¬ 
vince.  He  tells  us  of  his  great  difficulty  in  joining 
his  arm}'-, — of  the  necessity  which  is  incumbent  on  him 
of  securing  even  the  Roman  Province  from  invasion, 
and  of  the  manner  in  which  he  breaks  through  snow- 
clad  mountains,  the  Cevennes,  at  a  time  of  the  year  in 
which  such  mountains  were  supposed  to  be  impassable. 
He  is  forced  into  fighting  before  the  winter  is  over,  be¬ 
cause,  unless  he  does  so,  the  few  friends  he  has  in  Gaul, 
— the  iEdui,  for  instance, — will  have  been  gained  over 
by  the  enemy.  This  made  it  very  difficult,  Caesar  tells 
us,  for  him  to  know  what  to  do ;  but  he  decides  that 
he  must  begin  his  campaign,  though  it  be  winter  still. 

Caesar,  moving  his  army  about  with  wonderful  quick¬ 
ness,  takes  three  towns  in  the  centre  of  Gaul,  of  which 


THE  FATE  OF  AVARICUM. 


103 


Genabum,  Orleans,  is  tlie  first,  and  thus  provides  him¬ 
self  with  food.  Vercingetorix,  when  he  hears  of  these 
losses,  greatly  troubled  in  his  mind  that  Caesar  should 
thus  be  enabled  to  exist  on  the  provisions  gathered  by 
the  Gauls,  determines  to  burn  all  the  Gaulish  towns  in 
those  parts.  He  tells  his  people  that  there  is  nothing 
else  for  them  in  their  present  emergency,  and  that  they 
must  remember  when  they  see  their  hearths  smoking 
and  their  property  destroyed,  that  it  would  be,  or  ought 
to  be,  much  more  grievous  for  them  to  know  that  their 
wives  and  children  would  become  slaves,  as  undoubt¬ 
edly  would  be  their  fate,  if  Caesar  were  allowed  to  pre¬ 
vail.  The  order  is  given.  Twenty  cities  belonging  to 
one  tribe  are  burned  to  the  ground.  The  same  thing 
is  done  in  other  states.  But  there  is  one  very  beauti¬ 
ful  city,  the  glory  of  the  country  round,  which  can,  they 
say,  b6  so  easily  defended  that  it  will  be  a  comfort 
rather  than  a  peril  to  them.  Avaricum,  the  present 
Bourges, — must  that  also  be  burned  ?  May  not  Ava¬ 
ricum  be  spared?  Vercingetorix  is  all  for  burning 
Avaricum  as  he  has  burned  the  others  ;  but  he  allows 
himself  to  be  persuaded,  and  the  city  is  spared — for  the 
time. 

Caesar,  of  course,  determines  to  case  Avaricum  ;  but 
he  encounters  great  difficulties.  The  cattle  have  been 
driven  away.  There  is  no  corn.  Those  wretched 
/Edui  do  almost  nothing  for  him ;  and  the  Boii,  who 
are  their  neighbours,  and  who,  at  the  best,  are  but  a 
poor  scanty  people,  are  equally  unserviceable.  Some 
days  his  army  is  absolutely  without  food ;  but  yet  no 
word  of  complaint  is  heard  “  unworthy  of  the  majesty 


104  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— SEVENTH  BOOR. 


and  former  victories  of  tlie  Boman  people.”  The  sol¬ 
diers  even  beg  him  to  continue  the  siege  when  he  offers 
to  raise  it  because  of  the  hardships  they  are  enduring. 
Let  them  endure  anything,  they  say,  but  failure ! 
“  Moreover  Caesar,  when  he  would  accost  his  legions 
one  by  one  at  their  work,  and  would  tell  them  that  he 
would  raise  the  siege  if  they  could  but  ill  bear  their 
privations,  was  implored  by  all  of  them  not  to  do  that. 
They  said  that  for  many  years  under  his  command  they 
had  so  well  done  their  duty  that  they  had  undergone  no 
disgrace,  had  never  quitted  their  ground  leaving  aught 
unfinished,” — except  the  subjugation  of  Britain  they 
might  perhaps  have  said, — “  that  they  would  be  now 
disgraced  if  they  should  raise  a  siege  which  had  been 
commenced ;  that  they  would  rather  bear  all  hardships 
than  not  avenge  the  Boman  citizens  who  had  perished 
at  Genabum  by  the  perfidy  of  the  Gauls.”  Caesar  puts 
these  words  into  the  mouths  of  his  legionaries,  and 
as  we  read  them  we  believe  that  such  was  the  existing 
spirit  of  the  men.  Caesar’s  soldiers  now  had  learned 
better  than  to  cry  because  they  were  afraid  of  their 
enemies. 

Then  we  hear  that  Vercingetorix  is  in  trouble  with 
the  Gauls.  The  Gauls,  when  they  see  the  Bomans  so 
near  them,  think  that  they  are  to  be  betrayed  into 
Caesar’s  hands,  and  they  accuse  their  .leader.  But 
Vercingetorix  makes  them  a  speech,  and  brings  up  cer* 
tain  Boman  prisoners  to  give  evidence  as  to  the  evil 
condition  of  the  Boman  army.  Vercingetorix  swears 
that  these  prisoners  are  soldiers  from  the  Boman 
legions,  and  so  settles  that  little  trouble;  but  Caesar. 


THE  FATE  OF  AVARICUM. 


105 


defending  liis  legionaries,  asserts  that  the  merf  so 
used  were  simply  slaves. 

Vercingetorix  is  in  his  camp  at  some  little  distance 
from  Avarieum,  while  Caesar  is  determined  to  take  the 
city.  We  have  the  description  of  the  siege,  concise, 
graphic,  and  clear.  We  are  told  of  the  nature  of  the 
walls ;  how  the  Gauls  were  good  at  mining  and 
countermining ;  how  they  Hung  hot  pitch  and  boiling 
grease  on  the  invaders  ;  how  this  was  kept  up,  one 
Gaul  after  another  stepping  on  to  the  body  of  his 
dying  comrade ;  how  at  last  they  resolved  to  quit  the 
town  and  make  their  way  by  night  to  the  camp  of 
Vercingetorix,  but  were  stopped  by  the  prayers  of  their 
own  women,  who  feared  Caesar’s  mercies  ; — and  how  at 
last  the  city  was  taken.  We  cannot  but  execrate 
Caesar  when  he  tells  us  coolly  of  the  result.  They 
were  all  killed.  The  old,  the  women,  and  the  chil¬ 
dren,  perished  altogether,  slaughtered  by  the  Bomans. 
Out  of  forty  thousand  inhabitants,  Caesar  says  that 
about  eight  hundred  got  safely  to  Vercingetorix.  Of 
course  we  doubt  the  accuracy  of  Caesar’s  figures  when 
he  tells  us  of  the  numbers  of  the  Gauls  ;  but  we  do  not 
doubt  that  but  a  few  escaped,  and  that  all  but  a  few 
were  slaughtered.  When,  during  the  last  campaign, 
the  Gauls  at  Genabum  (Orleans)  had  determined  on 
revolt  against  Caesar,  certain  Boman  traders — usurers 
for  the  most  part,  who  had  there  established  them¬ 
selves — were  killed.  Caesar  gives  this  as  the  cause,  and 
sufficient  cause,  for  the  wholesale  slaughter  of  women 
and  children  !  One  reflects  that  not  otherwise,  per- 
haps,  could  he  have  conquered  Gaul,  and  that  Gaul 


10G  THE  WAR  IN  GAEL.— SEVENTH  BOOK. 


had  to  be  conquered ;  but  we  cannot  for  tbe  moment 
but  abhor  the  man  capable  of  such  work.  Yercinget- 
orix  bears  his  loss  bravely.  He  reminds  the  Gauls 
that  had  they  taken  his  advice  the  city  would  have 
been  destroyed  by  themselves  and  not  defended  ;  ho 
tells  them  that  all  the  states  of  Gaul  are  now  ready 
to  join  him ;  and  he  prepares  to  fortify  a  camp  after 
the  Roman  fashion.  Hitherto  the  Gauls  have  fought 
either  from  behind  the  walls  of  towns,  or  out  in  the 
open  country  without  other  protection  than  that  of 
the  woods  and  hills. 

Then  there  is  another  episode  with  those  unsatisfac¬ 
tory  iEdui.  There  is  a  quarrel  among  them  who  shall 
be  their  chief  magistrate, — a  certain  old  man  or  a  cer¬ 
tain  young  man, — and  they  send  to  Caesar  to  settle  the 
question.  Caesar’s  hands  are  very  full ;  but,  as  he 
explains,  it  is  essential  to  him  that  his  allies  shall  be 
kept  in  due  subordinate  order.  He  therefore  absolutely 
goes  in  person  to  one  of  their  cities,  and  decides  that 
the  young  man  shall  be  the  chief  magistrate.  But, 
as  he  seldom  does  anything  for  nothing,  he  begs  that 
ten  thousand  HMuan  infantry  and  all  the  iEduan  cav¬ 
alry  may  be  sent  to  help  him  against  Yercingetorix. 
The  Hklui  have  no  alternative  but  to  comply.  Their 
compliance,  however,  is  not  altogether  of  a  friendly 
nature.  The  old  man  who  has  been  put  out  of  the 
magistracy  gets  hold  of  the  iEduan  general  of  the 
forces  ;  and  the  Hkluan  army  takes  the  field, — to  help, 
not  Caesar,  but  Yercingetorix  !  There  is  a  large  amount 
of  .  lying  and  treachery  among  the  H£dui,  and  of  course 
tidings  of  what  is  going  on  are  carried  to  Caesar.  Over 


THE  SIEGE  OF  GERGOVIA. 


107 


and  over  again  these  people  deceive  him,  betray  him, 
and  endeavour  to  injure  his  cause ;  hut  he  always  for¬ 
gives  them,  or  pretends  to  forgive  them.  It  is  his 
policy  to  show  to  the  Gauls  how  great  can  he  the 
friendship  and  clemency  of  Ctesar.  If  he  would  have 
burned  the  ^dui  and  spared  Bourges  we  should  have 
liked  him  better;  but  then,  had  he  done  so,  he  would 
not  have  been  Cassar. 

While  Caesar  is  thus  troubled  with  his  allies,  he  has 
trouble  enough  also  with  his  enemies.  Yercingetorix, 
with  his  followers,  after  that  terrible  reverse  at  Avari- 
cum, — Bourges, — goes  into  his  own  country  which  we 
know  as  Auvergne,  and  there  encamps  his  army  on  a 
high  hill  with  a  flat  top,  called  Gergovia.  All  of  us 
who  have  visited  Clermont  have  probably  seen  the 
hill.  Yercingetorix  makes  three  camps  for  his  army 
on  the  hill,  and  the  Arverni  have  a  town  there.  The 
Gaul  has  so  placed  himself  that  there  shall  be  a  river 
not  capable  of  being  forded  between  himself  and  Caesar. 
But  the  Homan  general  makes  a  bridge  and  sets  him¬ 
self  down  with  his  legions  before  Gergovia.  The  limits 
of  this  little  work  do  not  admit  of  any  detailed  descrip¬ 
tion  of  Caesar’s  battles  ;  but  perhaps  there  is  none  more 
interesting  than  this  siege.  The  three  Gaidish  camps 
are  taken.  The  women  of  Gergovia,  thinking  that 
their  town  is  taken  also,  leaning  over  the  walls,  implore 
mercy  from  the  Homans,  and  beg  that  they  may  not 
be  treated  as  have  the  women  of  Avaricum.  Certain 
leading  Homan  soldiers  absolutely  climb  up  into  the 
town.  The  reader  also  thinks  that  Caesar  is  to  prevail, 
<is  he  always  docs  prevail.  But  he  is  beaten  back,  and 


108  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— SEVENTH  BOOR . 

has  to  give  it  up.  On  this  occasion  the  gallant 
Vercingetorix  is  the  master  of  the  day,  and  Caesar 
excuses  himself  by  explaining  how  it  was  that  his 
legions  were  defeated  through  the  rash  courage  of  his 
own  men,  and  not  by  bad  generalship  of  his  own. 
And  it  probably  was  so.  The  reader  always  feels  in¬ 
clined  to  believe  the  Commentary,  even  when  he  may 
most  dislike  Caesar.  Caesar  again  makes  his  bridge 
over  the  river,  the  Allier,  and  retires  into  the  territory 
of  his  doubtful  friends  the  iEdui.  He  tells  us  himself 
that  in  that  affair  he  lost  700  men  and  46  officers. 

It  seems  that  at  this  time  Caesar  with  his  whole  army 
must  have  been  in  great  danger  of  being  destroyed  by 
the  Gauls.  Why  Vercingetorix  did  not  follow  up  his 
victory  and  prevent  Caesar  from  escaping  over  the  Allier 
is  not  explained.  Ho  doubt  the  requirements  of  war¬ 
fare  were  not  known  to  the  Gaul  as  they  were  to  the 
Roman.  As  it  was,  Caesar  had  enough  to  do  to  save 
his  army.  The  AEdui,  of  course,  turned  against  him 
again.  All  his  stores  and  treasure  and  baggage  were 
at  Hoviodunum, — Nevers, — a  town  belonging  to  the 
iEdui.  These  are  seized  by  his  allies,  who  destroy  all 
that  they  cannot  carry  away,  and  Caesar’s  army  is  in 
danger  of  being  starved.  Everything  has  been  eaten 
up  where  he  is,  and  the  Loire,  without  bridges  or  fords, 
was  between  him  and  a  country  where  food  was  to  be 
found.  He  does  cross  the  river,  the  iEdui  having  sup¬ 
posed  that  it  would  be  impossible.  He  finds  a  spot  in 
which  his  men  can  wade  across  with  their  shoulders 
just  above  the  waters.  Bad  as  the  spot  is  for  fording, 
in  his  great  difficulty  he  makes  the  attempt  and  accom¬ 
plishes  it. 


THE  REVOLT  OF  THE  jEDUI. 


109 


Then  there  is  an  account  of  a  battle  which  Labienus 
is  obliged  to  fight  up  near  Paris.  He  has  four  legions 
away  with  him  there,  and  having  heard  of  Caesar’s  mis¬ 
fortune  at  Gergovia,  knows  how  imperative  it  is  that 
he  should  join  his  chief.  He  fights  his  battle  and 
wins  it,  and  Caesar  tells  the  story  quite  as  enthusias¬ 
tically  as  though  he  himself  had  been  the  conqueror. 
When  this  difficulty  is  overcome,  Labienus  comes 
south  and  joins  his  Imperator. 

The  Gauls  are  still  determined  to  drive  Caesar  out 
of  their  country,  and  with  this  object  call  together  a 
great  council  at  Bibracte,  which  was  the  chief  town 
of  the  iEdui.  It  was  afterwards  called  Augustodu- 
num,  which  has  passed  into  the  modern  name  Autun. 
At  this  meeting,  the  iEdui,  who,  having  been  for  some 
years  past  bolstered  up  by  Pome,  think  themselves 
the  first  of  all  the  Gauls,  demand  that  the  chief 
authority  in  the  revolt  against  Pome, — now  that  they 
have  revolted, — shall  be  intrusted  to  them.  An 
ASduan  chief,  they  think,  should  be  the  commander- 
in-chief  in  this  war  against  Pome.  Who  has  done  so 
much  for  the  revolt  as  the  Hidui,  who  have  thrown 
over  their  friends  the  Pomans, — now  for  about  the 
tenth  time  ?  But  Vercingetorix  is  unanimously  elected, 
and  the  iEduan  chiefs  are  disgusted.  Then  there  is  an¬ 
other  battle.  Vercingetorix  thinks  that  he  is  strong 
enough  to  attack  the  enemy  as  Caesar  is  going  down 
south  towards  the  Province.  Caesar,  so  says  Vercinget- 
orix,  is  in  fact  retreating.  And,  indeed,  it  seems  that 
Caesar  was  retreating.  But  the  Gauls  are  beaten  and 
fly,  losing  some  three  thousand  of  their  men  who  are 
slaughtered  in  the  fight.  Vercingetorix  shuts  him- 


iio  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— SEVENTH  BOOR. 

self  up  in  a  town  called  Alesia,  and  Caesar  prepares  for 
another  siege. 

The  taking  of  Alesia  is  the  last  event  told  in  Caesar’s 
Commentary  on  the  Gallic  War,  and  of  all  the  stories 
told,  it  is  perhaps  the  most  heartrending.  Civilisation 
was  never  forwarded  in  a  fashion  more  terrible  than  that 
which  prevailed  at  this  siege.  Vercingetorix  with  his 
whole  army  is  forced  into  the  town,  and  Caesar  sur¬ 
rounds  it  with  ditches,  works,  lines,  and  ramparts,  so 
that  no  one  shall  be  able  to  escape  from  it.  Before  this 
is  completed,  and  while  there  is  yet  away  open  of  leav¬ 
ing  the  town,  the  Gaulish  chief  sends  out  horsemen, 
who  are  to  go  to  all  the  tribes  of  Gaul,  and  convene  the 
fighting  men  to  that  place,  so  that  by  their  numbers 
they  may  raise  the  siege  and  expel  the  Romans.  We 
find  that  these  horsemen  do  as  they  are  bidden,  and 
that  a  great  Gaulish  conference  is  held,  at  which  it  is 
decided  how  many  men  shall  "be  sent  by  each  tribe. 
Vercingetorix  has  been  very  touching  in  his  demand 
that  all  this  shall  be  done  quickly.  He  has  food  for 
the  town  for  thirty  days.  Probably  it  may  be  stretched 
to  last  a  little  longer.  Then,  if  the  tribes  are  not  true 
to  him,  he  and  the  eighty  thousand  souls  he  has  with 
him  must  perish.  The  horsemen  make  good  their 
escape  from  the  town,  and  Vercingetorix,  with  his  eighty 
thousand  hungry  souls  around  him,  prepares  to  wait. 
It  seems  to  us,  when  we  think  what  must  have  been 
the  Gallia  of  those  days,  and  when  we  remember  how 
far  thirty  days  would  now  be  for  sufficing  for  such 
a  purpose,  that  the  difficulties  to  be  overcome  were 
insuperable.  But  Caesar  says  that  the  tribes  did  send 
their  men,  each  tribe  sending  the  number  demanded, 


THE  SIEGE  OF  ALE  SI  A. 


Ill 


except  the  Bellovaci,  —  the  men  of  Beauvais, — who 
declared  that  they  chose  to  wage  war  on  their  own 
account;  hut  even  they,  out  of  kindness,  lent  two 
thousand  men.  Caesar  explains  that  even  his  own 
best  friends  among  the  Gauls, — among  whom  was 
one  Commius,  who  had  been  very  useful  to  him  in 
Britain,  and  whom  he  had  made  king  over  his  own 
tribe,  the  Atrebates, — at  this  conjuncture  of  affairs 
felt  themselves  bound  to  join  the  national  move¬ 
ment.  This  Commius  had  even  begged  for  the  two 
thousand  men  of  Beauvais.  So  great,  says  Caesar, 
was  the  united  desire  of  Gaul  to  recover  Gallic  liberty, 
that  they  were  deterred  from  coming  by  no  memory  of 
benefits  or  of  friendship.  Eight  thousand  horsemen 
and  two  hundred  and  forty  thousand  footmen  assembled 
themselves  in  the  territories  of  the  iEdui.  Alesia  was 
north  of  the  iEdui,  amidst  the  Lingones.  This  enor¬ 
mous  army  chose  its  generals,  and  marched  off  to 
Alesia  to  relievo  Vercingetorix. 

But  the  thirty  days  were  past,  and  more  than  past, 
and  the  men  and  women  in  Alesia  were  starving.  No 
tidings  ever  had  reached  Alesia  of  the  progress  which 
was  being  made  in  the  gathering  of  their  friends.  It 
had  come  to  be  very  bad  with  them  there.  Some  were 
talking  of  unconditional  surrender.  Others  proposed 
to  cut  their  way  through  the  Boman  lines.  Then  one 
Critognatus  had  a  suggestion  to  make,  and  Caesar 
gives  us  the  words  of  his  ’speech.  It  has  been  com¬ 
mon  with  the  Greek  and  Latin  historians  to  put 
speeches  into  the  mouths  of  certain  orators,  adding 
the  words  when  the  matter  has  come  within  either 
their  knowledge  .or  belief.  Caesar  does  not  often 


112  TI1E  WAR  IN  OAUL.— SEVENTH  BOOK. 


thus  risk  his  credibility ;  but  on  this  occasion  he  does 
so.  We  have  the  speech  of  Critognatus,  word  for 
word.  Of  those  who  speak  of  surrender  he  thinks  so 
meanly  that  he  will  not  notice  them.  As  to  that  cut¬ 
ting  a  way  through  the  Roman  lines,  which  means 
death,  he  is  of  opinion  that  to  endure  misfortune  is 
greater  than  to  die.  Many  a  man  can  die  who  cannot 
bravely  live  and  suffer.  Let  them  endure  a  little 
longer.  Why  doubt  the  truth  and  constancy  of  the 
tribes  'l  Then  he  makes  his  suggestion.  Let  those 
who  can  fight,  and  are  thus  useful, — eat  those  who  are 
useless  and  cannot  fight ;  and  thus  live  till  the  levies 
of  all  Gaul  shall  have  come  to  their  succour!  Those 
who  have  authority  in  Alesia  cannot  quite  bring  them¬ 
selves  to  this,  but  they  do  that  which  is  horrible  in 
the  next  degree.  They  will  turn  out  of  the  town  all 
the  old,  all  the  weak,  and  all  the  women.  After  that, 
— if  that  will  not  suffice, — then  they  will  begin  to  eat 
each  other.  The  town  belongs,  or  did  belong,  to  a 
people  called  the  Mandubii, — not  to  Vercingetorix  or 
his  tribe ;  and  the  Mandubii,  with  their  children  and 
women,  are  compelled  to  go  out. 

But  whither  shall  they  go  1  Caesar  has  told  us  that 
there  was  a  margin  of  ground  between  his  lines  and 
the  city  wall, — an  enclosed  space  from  which  there 
was  no  egress  except  into  Caesar’s  camp  or  into  the 
besieged  town.  Here  stand  these  weak  ones, — aged 
men,  women,  and  children, — and  implore  Caesar  to 
receive  them  into  his  camp,  so  that  they  may  pass  out 
into  the  open  country.  There  they  stood  as  suppli¬ 
cants,  on  that  narrow  margin  of  ground  between  two 
armies.  Their  own  friends,  having  no  food  for  them, 


T11E  SIEGE  OF  ALE  SI  A. 


113 


had  expelled  them  from  their  own  homes.  Would 
Caesar  have  mercy  ?  Caesar,  with  a  wave  of  his  hand, 
declines  to  have  mercy.  He  tells  ns  what  he  himself 
decides  to  do  in  eight  words.  “At  Caesar,  depositis 
in  vallo  custodiis,  recipi  proliibebat.”  ‘‘But  Caesar, 
having  placed  guards  along  the  rampart,  forbade  that 
they  should  be  received.”  We  hear  no  more  of  them, 
but  we  know  that  they  perished ! 

The  collected  forces  of  Gaul  do  at  last  come  up 
to  attempt  the  rescue  of  Vercingetorix, — and  indeed 
they  come  in  time ;  were  they  able  by  coming  to  do 
anything  ?  They  attack  Caesar  in  his  camp,  and  a  great 
battle  is  fought  beneath  the  eyes  of  the  men  in  Alesia. 
But  Caesar  is  very  careful  that  those  who  now  are 
hemmed  up  in  the  town  shall  not  join  themselves  to 
the  Gauls  wrho  had  spread  over  the  country  all  around 
him.  We  hear  how  during  the  battle  Caesar  comes  up 
himself,  and  is  known  by  the  colour  of  his  cloak„  We 
again  feel,  as  we  read  his  account  of  the  fighting,  that 
the  Gauls  nearly  win,  and  that  they  ought  to  win. 
But  at  last  they  are  driven  headlong  in  flight, — all  the 
levies  of  all  the  tribes.  The  Romans  kill  very  many : 
Avere  not  the  labour  of  killing  too  much  for  them,  they 
might  kill  all.  A  huge  crowd,  however,  escapes,  and 
the  men  scatter  themselves  back  into  their  tribes. 

On  the  next  day  Vercingetorix  yields  himself  and 
the  city  to  Caesar.  During  the  late  battle  he  and  his 
men  shut  up  within  the  walls  have  been  simply  spec¬ 
tators  of  the  fighting.  Caesar  is  sitting  in  his  lines 
before  his  camp  ;  and  there  the  chieftains,  with  Ver¬ 
cingetorix  at  their  head,  are  brought  up  to  him.  Plu- 

A.  C.  vol.  iv.  H 


114  THE  WAR  IN  GAUL.— SEVENTH  BOOK. 


tarch  tells  us  a  story  of  the  chieftain  riding  up  before 
Caesar,  to  deliver  himself,  with  gilt  armour,  on  a  grand 
horse,  caracolling  and  prancing.  We  cannot  fancy  that 
any  horse  out  of  Alesia,  could,  after  the  siege,  have 
been  fit  for  such  holiday  occasion.  The  horses  out  of 
Vercingetorix’s  stables  had  probably  been  eaten  many 
days  since.  Then  Caesar  again  forgives  the  iEdui;  but 
Vercingetorix  is  taken  as  a  prisoner  to  Rome,  is  kept  a 
prisoner  for  six  years,  is  then  led  in  Caesar’s  Triumph, 
and,  after  these  six  years,  is  destroyed,  as  a  victim 
needed  for  Caesar’s  glory,  —  that  so  honour  may  be 
done  to  Caesar  !  Caesar  puts  his  army  into  winter  quar¬ 
ters,  and  determines  to  remain  himself  in  Gaul  during 
the  winter.  When  his  account  of  these  things  reaches 
Rome,  a  “  supplication”  of  twenty  days  is  decreed  in 
his  honour. 

This  is  the  end  of  Caesar’s  Commentary  “  De  Bello 
Gallico.”  The  war  was  carried  on  for  two  years  more ; 
and  a  memoir  of  Caesar’s  doings  during  those  two  years, 
— B.c.  51  and  50, — was  written,  after  Caesar’s  manner, 
by  one  Aulus  Hirtius.  There  is  no  pretence  on  the 
writer’s  part  that  this  was  the  work  of  Caesar’s  hands, 
as  in  a  short  preface  he  makes  an  author’s  apology  for 
venturing  to  continue  what  Caesar  had  begun.  The 
most  memorable  circumstance  of  Caesar’s  warfares  told 
in  this  record  of  two  campaigns  is  the  taking  of  TTxel- 
lodunum,  a  town  in  the  south-west  of  Trance,  the  site 
of  which  is  not  now  known.  Caesar  took  the  town  by 
cutting  off  the  water,  and  then  horribly  mutilated  the 
inhabitants  who  had  dared  to  defend  their  own  hearths. 


TEE  COMMENTARY  CONTINUED. 


115 


Caesar,”  says  this  historian,  “  knowing  well  that  his 
clemency  was  acknowledged  by  all  men,  and  that  he  need 
not  fear  that  any  punishment  inflicted  by  him  would 
be  attributed  to  the  cruelty  of  his  nature,  perceiving 
also  that  he  could  never  know  what  might  be  the  end 
of  his  policy  if  such  rebellions  should  continue  to  break 
out,  thought  that  other  Gauls  should  be  deterred  by 
the  fear  of  punishment. ”  So  he  cut  of  the  hands  of  all 

those  who  had  borne  arms  at  Uxellodunum,  and  turned 

} 

the  maimed  wretches  adrift  upon  the  world  !  And 
his  apologist  adds,  that  he  gave  them  life  so  that  the 
punishment  of  these  wicked  ones, — who  had  fought 
for  their  liberty, — might  be  the  more  manifest  to  the. 
world  at  large !  This  was  perhaps  the  crowning  act  of 
Caesar’s  cruelty, — defended,  as  we  see,  by  the  character 
he  had  achieved  for  clemency ! 

Soon  after  this  Gaul  was  really  subdued,  and  then 
we  hear  the  first  preparatory  notes  of  the  coming 
civil  war.  An  attempt  wTas  made  at  Borne  to  ruin 
Caesar  in  his  absence.  One  of  the  consuls  of  the  year, — 
b.c.  51, — endeavoured  to  deprive  him  of  the  remainder 
of  the  term  of  his  proconsulship,  and  to  debar  him 
from  seeking  the  suffrages  of  the  people  for  the  consul¬ 
ship  in  his  absence.  Two  of  his  legions  are  also  de¬ 
manded  from  him,  and  are  surrendered  by  him.  The 
order,  indeed,  is  for  one  legion  from  him  and  one  from 
Pompeius  ;  but  he  has  had  with  him,  as  the  reader  will 
remember,  a  legion  borrowed  from  Pompeius  ; — and 
thus  in  fact  Caesar  is  called  upon  to  give  up  two  legions. 
And  he  gives  them  up, — not  being  as  yet  quite  ready 
to  pass  the  Bubicon. 


I 


CHAPTER  IX. 

FIRST  BOOK  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. — CiESAR  CROSSES  THE  RUBI¬ 
CON. —  FOLLOWS  POMPEY  TO  BRUNDUSIUM. — AND  CONQUERS 
AFRANIUS  IN  SPAIN. — B.C.  49. 

C.52SAR  now  gives  us  his  history  of  that  civil  war  in 
which  he  and  Pompey  contended  for  the  mastery  over 
Rome  and  the  Republic.  In  his  first  Commentary  he  had 
recorded  his  campaigns  in  Gaul, — campaigns  in  which 
he  reduced  tribes  which  were,  if  not  hostile,  at  any  rate 
foreign,  and  by  his  success  in  which  he  carried  on  and 
maintained  the  potency,  traditions,  and  purport  of  the 
Roman  Republic.  It  was  the  ambition  of  the  Roman 
to  be  master  of  the  known  world.  In  his  ideas  no 
more  of  the  world  was  really  known  than  had  become 
Roman,  and  any  extension  to  the  limits  of  this  world 
could  only  be  made  by  the  addition  of  so-called  barbar¬ 
ous  tribes  to  the  number  of  Roman  subjects.  In  reduc¬ 
ing  Gaul,  therefore,  and  in  fighting  with  the  Germans, 
and  in  going  over  to  Britain,  Csesar  was  doing  that  which 
all  good  Romans  wished  to  see  done,  and  was  rivalling 
in  the  West  the  great  deeds  which  Pompey  had  accom¬ 
plished  for  the  Republic  in  the  East.  In  Lhis  second 
Commentary  he  is  forced  to  deal  with  a  subject  which 
must  have  been  less  gratifying  to  Roman  readers.  He 


CORRUPTION  IN  ROME . 


117 


relates  to  us  tlie  victories  which  he  won  with  Roman 
legions  over  other  legions  equally  Roman,  and  by  which 
he  succeeded  in  destroying  the  liberty  of  the  Republic. 

It  must  he  acknowledged  on  Ctesar’s  behalf  that 
in  truth  liberty  had  fallen  in  Rome  before  Cmsar’s 
time.  Power  had  produced  wealth,  and  wealth  had 
produced  corruption.  The  tribes  of  Rome  were 
bought  and  sold  at  the  various  elections,  and  a  few 
great  oligarchs,  either  of  this  faction  or  of  that,  divided 
among  themselves  the  places  of  trust  and  honour  and 
power,  and  did  so  with  hands  ever  open  for  the  grasp 
ing  of  public  wealth.  An  honest  man  with  clean 
hands  and  a  conscience,  with  scruples  and  a  love  of 
country,  became  unfitted  for  public  employment.  Cato 
in  these  days  was  simply  ridiculous ;  and  even 
Cicero,  though  he  was  a  trimmer,  was  too  honest  for 
the  times.  Laws  were  wrested  from  their  purposes,  and 
the  very  Tribunes*  of  the  people  had  become  the  worst 
of  tyrants.  It  was  necessary,  perhaps,  that  there 
should  he  a  master; — so  at  least  Caesar  thought.  He 
had,  no  doubt,  seen  this  necessity  during  all  these 
years  of  fighting  in  Gaul,  and  had  resolved  that  he 
would  not  he  less  than  Pirst  in  the  new  order  of  things. 
So  lie  crossed  the  Rubicon. 

The  reader  of  this  second  Commentary  will  find  it 
less  alluring  than  the  first.  There  is  less  in  it  of  ad¬ 
venture,  less  of  new  strange  life,  and  less  of  that  sound, 

*  The  Tribunes  of  tlie  people  were  officers  elected  annually  to 
act  on  behalf  of  tlie  people  as  checks  on  the  magistracy  of  the 
Republic,  and  were  endowed  with  vast  powers,  which  they  were 
presumed  to  use  for  the  protection  of  liberty.  But  the  office  of 
Tribune  had  become  degraded  to  party  purposes,  as  had  every 
other  office  of  the  state. 


118 


THE  CIVIL  WAR.— FIRST  BOOK. 


healthy,  joyous  feeling  which  sprang  from  a  thorough 
conviction  on  Caesar’s  part  that  in  crushing  the  Gauls 
he  was  doing  a  thoroughly  good  thing.  To  us,  and 
our  way  of  thinking,  his  doings  in  Gaul  were  stained 
with  terrible  cruelty.  To  him  and  to  his  Romans  they 
were  foul  with  no  such  stain.  How  other  Roman  con¬ 
querors  acted  to  other  conquered  peoples  we  may  learn 
from  the  fact,  that  Caesar  obtained  a  character  for  great 
mercy  by  his  forbearance  in  Gaul.  He  always  writes 
as  though  he  were  free  from  any  sting  of  conscience, 
as  he  tells  us  of  the  punishments  which  policy  called 
upon  him  to  inflict.  But  as  he  writes  of  these  civil 
wars,  there  is  an  absence  of  this  feeling  of  perfect  self- 
satisfaction,  and  at  the  same  time  he  is  much  less  cruel. 
Hecatombs  of  Gauls,  whether  men  or  women  or  chil¬ 
dren,  he  could  see  burned  or  drowned  or  starved,  mu¬ 
tilated  or  tortured,  without  a  shudder.  He  could  give 
the  command  for  such  operations  writh  less  remorse 
than  we  feel  when  wo  order  the  destruction  of  a  litter 
of  undesirable  puppies.  But  he  could  not  bring  him¬ 
self  to  slay  Roman  legionaries,  even  in  fair  fighting, 
with  anything  like  self-satisfaction.  In  this  he  was 
either  soft-hearted  or  had  a  more  thorough  feeling  of 
country  than  generals'  or  soldiers  who  have  fought  in 
civil  contests  since  his  time  have  shown.  In  the  Wars 
of  the  Roses  and  in  those  of  Cromwell  we  recognise  no 
such  feeling.  The  American  generals  were  not  so 
restrained.  But  Caesar  seems  to  have  valued  a  Roman 
legionary  more  than  a  tribe  of  Gauls. 

Nevertheless  he  crossed  the  Rubicon.  We  have 
all  heard  of  this  crossing  of  the  Rubicon,  hut  Caesar 
wiys  nothing  about  it.  The  Rubicon  was  a  little 


CAESAR  CROSSES  THE  RUBICON. 


119 


river,  now  almost  if  not  altogether  unknown,  running 
into  the  Adriatic  between  Ravenna  and  Ariminum, — • 
Rimini, — and  dividing  the  provinces  of  so-called  Cis¬ 
alpine  Gaul  from  the  territory  under  the  immediate 
rule  of  the  magistracy  of  Rome.  Caesar  was,  so  to 
say,  at  home  north  of  the  Rubicon.  He  was  in  his 
own  province,  and  had  all  things  under  his  command. 
Rut  he  was  forbidden  by  the  laws  even  to  enter  the 
territory  of  Rome  proper  while  in  the  command  of  a 
Roman  province  ;  and  therefore,  in  crossing  the  Rubi¬ 
con,  he  disobeyed  the  laws,  and  put  himself  in  opposition 
to  the  constituted  authorities  of  the  city.  It  does  not 
appear,  however,  that  very  much  was  thought  of  this, 
or  that  the  passage  of  the  river  was  in  truth  taken  as 
the  special  sign  of  Caesar’s  purpose,  or  as  a  deed  that 
was  irrevocable  in  its  consequences.  There  are  vari¬ 
ous  pretty  stories  of  Caesar’s  hesitation  as  he  stood  on 
the  brink  of  the  river,  doubting  whether  he  would 
plunge  the  world  into  civil  war.  We  are  told  how  a 
spirit  appeared  to  him  and  led  him  across  the  water 
with  martial  music,  and  how  Caesar,  declaring  that  the 
die  was  cast,  went  on  and  crossed  the  fatal  stream. 
Rut  all  this  was  fable,  invented  on  Caesar’s  behalf  by 
Romans  who  came  after  Caesar.  Caesar’s  purpose  was, 
no  doubt,  well  understood  when  he  brought  one  of 
his  legions  down  into  that  corner  of  his  province,  but 
offers  to  treat  with  him  on  friendly  terms  were  made 
by  Pompey  and  his  party  after  he  had  established 
himself  on  the  Roman  side  of  the  river. 

When  the  civil  war  began,  Caesar  had  still,  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  assignment  made  to  him,  two  years  and  a 
half  left  of  his  allotted  period  of  government  in  the 


120 


TIIE  CIVIL  WAR.— FIRST  BOOK. 


three  provinces ;  hut  his  victories  and  his  power  had 
"been  watched  with  anxious  eyes  from  Pome,  and  the 
Senate  had  attempted  to ’decree  that  he  should  he 
recalled.  Pompey  was  no  longer  Caesar’s  friend,  nor 
did  Caesar  expect  his  friendship  Pompey,  who  had 
lately  played  his  cards  but  badly,  and  must  have  felt 
that  he  had  played  them  badly,  had  been  freed  from 
his  bondage  to  Caesar  by  the  death  of  Crassus,  the 
third  triumvir,  by  the  death  of  Julia,  Caesar’s  daugh¬ 
ter,  and  by  the  course  of  things  in  Pome.  It  had 
been  an  unnatural  alliance  arranged  by  Caesar  with 
the  view  of  clipping  his  rival’s  wings.  The  fortunes 
of  Pompey  had  hitherto  been  so  bright,  that  he  also 
had  seemed  to  be  divine.  While  still  a  boy,  he  had 
commanded  and  conquered,  women  had  adored  him, 
the  soldiers  had  worshipped  him.  Sulla  had  called 
him  the  Great ;  and,  as  we  are  told,  had  raised  his 
hat  to  him  in  token  of  honour.  He  had  been  allowed 
the  glory  of  a  Triumph  while  yet  a  youth,  and  had  tri¬ 
umphed  a  second  time  before  he  had  reached  middle 
life.  He  had  triumphed  again  a  third  time,  and  the 
three  Triumphs  had  been  won  in  the  three  quarters  of 
the  globe.  In  all  things  he  had  been  successful,  and  in 
all  things  happy.  He  had  driven  the  swarming  pirates 
from  every  harbour  in  the  Mediterranean,  and  had 
filled  Pome  with  corn.  He  had  returned  a  conqueror 
with  his  legions  from  the  East,  and  had  dared  to  dis¬ 
band  them,  that  he  might  live  again  as  a  private  citi¬ 
zen.  And  after  that,  when  it  was  thought  necessary  that 
the  city  should  be  saved,  in  her  need,  from  the  factions 
of  her  own  citizens,  he  had  been  made  sole  consul. 
It  is  easier  now  to  understand  the  character  of  Pom- 


POMPETS  GUAR  ACT EP 


121 


pey  than  the  position  which,  hy  nis  unvaried  suc¬ 
cesses,  he  had  made  for  himself  in  the  minds  both  of 
the  nobles  and  of  the  people.  Even  up  to  this  time, 
even  after  Caesar’s  wars  in  Gaul,  there  was  something 
of  divinity  hanging  about  Pompey,  in  which  the 
Romans  of  the  city  trusted.  He  had  been  imperious, 
but  calm  in  manner  and  self-possessed, — allowing  no 
one  to  be  his  equal,  but  not  impatient  in  making 
good  his  claims ;  grand,  handsome,  lavish  when  policy 
required  it,  rapacious  when  much  was  needed,  never 
self-indulgent,  heartless,  false,  cruel,  politic,  ambitious, 
very  brave,  and  a  Roman  to  the  backbone.  But  ho 
had  this  failing,  this  weakness ; — when  the  time  for 
the  last  struggle  came,  he  did  not  quite  know  what 
it  was  that  he  desired  to  do;  he  did  not  clearly  see 
his  future.  The  things  to  be  done  were  so  great,  that 
he  had  not  ceased  to  doubt  concerning  them  when  the 
moment  came  in  which  doubt  was  fatal.  Caesar  saw 
it  all,  and  never  doubted.  That  little  tale  of  Caesar 
standing  on  the  bridge  over  the  Rubicon  pondering  as 
to  his  future  course, — divided  between  obedience  and 
rebellion, — is  very  pretty.  But  there  was  no  such 
pondering,  and  no  such  division.  Caesar  knew  verj 
well  what  he  meant  and  what  he  wanted. 

Caesar  is  full  of  his  wrongs  as  he  begins  his  second 
narrative.  He  tells  us  how  his  own  friends  are 
silenced  in  the  Senate  and  in  the  city ;  how  his  ene¬ 
mies,  Scipio,  Cato,  and  Lentulus  the  consul,  prevail : 
how  no  one  is  allowed  to  say  a  word  for  him.  “  Pom¬ 
pey  himself,”  he  says,  “  urged  on  by  the  enemies  of 
Caesar,  and  because  he  was  unwilling  that  any  one 
should  equal  himself  in  honour,  had  turned  himself 


122 


THE  CIVIL  WA  R.— FIRST  BOOK. 


altogether  from  Caesar’s  friendship,  and  had  gone  back 
to  the  fellowship  of  their  common  enemies, — enemiea 
whom  he  himself  had  created  for  Caesar  during  the 
time  of  their  alliance.  At  the  same  time,  conscious  of 
the  scandal  of  those  two  legions  which  he  had  stopped 
on  their  destined  road  to  Asia  and  Syria  and  taken  into 
his  own  hand,  he  was  anxious  that  the  question  should 
be  referred  to  arms.”  Those  two  legions  are  very  griev¬ 
ous  to  Caesar.  One  was  the  legion  which,  as  we  re¬ 
member,  Pompey  had  given  up  to  friendship, — and  the 
Republic.  When,  in  the  beginning  of  these  contests 
between  the  two  rivals,  the  Senate  had  decided  on 
weakening  each  by  demanding  from  each  a  legion, 
Pompey  had  asked  Caesar  for  the  restitution  of  that 
which  he  had  so  kindly  lent.  Caesar,  too  proud  to 
refuse  payment  of  the  debt,  had  sent  that  to  his 
former  friend,  and  had  also  sent  another  legion,  as  de¬ 
manded,  to  the  Senate.  They  were  required  nominally 
for  service  in  the  East,  and  now  were  in  the  hands 
of  him  who  had  been  Caesar’s  friend  but  had  become 
his  enemy.  It  is  no  wonder  that  Caesar  talks  of  the 
infamy  or  scandal  of  the  two  legions  !  He  repeats 
his  complaint  as  to  the  two  legions  again  and  again. 

In  the  month  of  January  Caesar  was  at  Ravenna, 
just  north  of  the  Rubicon,  and  in  his  own  province. 
Messages  pass  between  him  and  the  Senate,  and  he 
proposes  his  terms.  The  Senate  also  proposes  its  terms. 
He  must  lay  down  his  arms',  or  he  will  be  esteemed  an 
enemy  by  the  Republic.  All  Rome  is  disturbed.  The 
account  is  Caesar’s  account,  but  we  imagine  that  Rome 
was  disturbed.  “Soldiers  are  recruited  over  all  Italy; 
arms  are  demanded,  taxes  are  levied  on  the  municipal- 


THE  RUBICON  IS  PASSED. 


123 


ities,  and  money  is  taken  from  the  sacred  shrines;  all 
laws  divine  and  human  are  disregarded.”  Then  Caesar 
explains  to  his  soldiers  his  wrongs,  and  the  crimes  of 
Pompey.  He  tells  them  how  they,  under  his  guid¬ 
ance,  have  been  victorious,  liow  under  him  they  have 
“  pacified  ah  Gaul  and  German y,  and  he  calls  upon 
them  to  defend  him  who  has  enabled  them  to  do  such 
great  things.  He  has  but  one  legion  with  him,  but 
that  legion  declares  that  it  will  obey  him, — him  and 
the  tribunes  of  the  people,  some  of  whom,  acting  on 
Caesar’s  side,  have  come  over  from  Pome  to  Ravenna. 
We  can  appreciate  the  spirit  of  this  allusion  to  the 
tribunes,  so  that  there  may  seem  to  be  still  some  link 
between  Caesar  and  the  civic  authorities.  When  the 
soldiers  have  expressed  their  goodwill,  he  goes  to 
Ariminum,  and  so  the  Rubicon  is  passed. 

There  are  still  more  messages.  Caesar  expresses 
himself  as  greatly  grieved  that  he  should  be  subjected 
to  so  much  suspense,  nevertheless  he  is  willing  to  suffer 
anything  for  the  Republic; — “omnia  pati  reipublicae 
causa.”  Only  let  Pompey  go  to  his  province,  let  the 
legions  in  and  about  Rome  be  disbanded,  let  all  the 
old  forms  of  free  government  be  restored,  and  panic 
be  abolished,  and  then, — when  that  is  done, — all  diffi¬ 
culties  may  be  settled  in  a  few  minutes’  talking.  The 
consuls  and  Pompey  send  back  word  that  if  Caesar 
will  go  back  into  Gaul  and  dismiss  his  army,  Pompey 
shall  go  at  once  to  Spain.  But  Pompey  and  the 
consuls  with  their  troops  will  not  stir  till  Caesar  shall 
have  given  security  for  his  departure.  Each  demands 
that  the  other  shall  first  abandon  his  position.  Of 
course  all  these  messages  mean  nothing. 


124 


TEE  CIVIL  WAR.— FIRST  BOOK. 


Caesar,  complaining  bitterly  of  injustice,  sends  a  por- 
tion  of  Inis  small  army  still  farther  into  the  Roman 
territory.  Marc  Antony  goes  to  Arezzo  with  five 
cohorts,  and  Caesar  occupies  three  other  cities  with,  a 
cohort  each.  The  marvel  is  that  he  was  not  attacked 
and  driven  back  by  Pompey.  We  may  probably  con¬ 
clude  that  the  soldiers,  though  under  the  command 
of  Pompey,  were  not  trustworthy  as  against  Caesar. 
As  Caesar  regrets  his  two  legions,  so  no  doubt  do  the 
two  legions  regret  their  commander.  At  any  rate,  the 
consular  forces  with  Pompey  and  the  consuls  and  a 
host  of  senators  retreat  southwards  to  Brundusium, — 
Brindisi, — intending  to  leave  Italy  by  the  port  which 
we  shall  all  use  before  long  when  we  go  eastwards. 
During  this  retreat,  the  first  blood  in  the  civil  war  is 
spilt  at  Corfinium,  a  town  which,  if  it  now  stood  at  all, 
would  stand  in  the  Abruzzi.  Caesar  there  is  victor 
in  a  small  engagement,  and  obtains  possession  of  the 
town.  The  Pompeian  officers  whom  he  finds  there  he 
sends  away,  and  allows  them  even  to  carry  with  them 
money  which  he  believes  to  have  been  taken  from  the 
public  treasury.  Throughout  his  route  southward  the 
soldiers  of  Pompey, — who  had  heretofore  been  his 
soldiers, — return  to  him.  Pompey  and  the  consuls 
still  retreat,  and  still  Caesar  follows  them,  though 
Pompey  had  boasted,  when  first  warned  to  beware  of 
Caesar,  that  he  had  only  to  stamp  upon  Italian  soil  and 
legions  would  arise  from  the  earth  ready  to  obey  him. 
He  knows,  however,  that  away  from  Rome,  in  her 
provinces,  in  Macedonia  and  Achaia,  in  Asia  and  Cilicia, 
in  Sicily',  Sardinia,  and  Africa,  in  Mauritania  and  the 
two  Spains,  there  are  Roman  legions  which  as  yet 


POM  FEY  RETREATS, . 


125 


kn  )w  no  Caesar.  It  may  be  better  for  Pompey  that 
he  should  stamp  his  foot  somewhere  out  of  Italy.  At 
any  rate  he  sends  the  obedient  consuls  and  his  attend¬ 
ant  senators  over  to  Dyrracliium  in  Illyria  with  a  part 
of  his  army,  and  follows  with  the  remainder  as  soon  as 
Caesar  is  at  his  heels.  Caesar  makes  an  effort  to  inter¬ 
cept  him  and  his  fleet,  but  in  that  he  fails.  Thus 
Pompey  deserts  Pome  and  Italy, — and  never  again 
sees  the  imperial  city  or  the  fair  land. 

Caesar  explains  to  us  why  he  does  not  follow  his 
enemy  and  endeavour  at  once  to  put  an  end  to  the 
struggle.  Pompey  is  provided  with  shipping  and  he 
is  not;  and  he  is  aware  that  the  force  of  Pome  lies  in 
her  provinces.  Moreover,  Pome  may  be  starved  by 
Pompey,  unless  he,  Caesar,  can  take  care  that  the  corn¬ 
growing  countries,  which  are  the  granaries  of  Pome, 
are  left  free  for  the  use  of  the  city.  He  must  make 
sure  of  the  two  Gauls,  and  of  Sardinia,  and  of  Sicily, 
of  Africa  too,  if  it  may  be  possible.  lie  must  win  to 
his  cause  the  two  Spains,  of  which  at  least  the  north¬ 
ern  province  was  at  present  devoted  to  Pompey.  He 
sends  one  lieutenant  to  Sardinia  with  a  legion,  another 
to  Sicily  with  three  legions, — and  from  Sicily  over 
into  Africa.  These  provinces  had  been  allotted  to 
partisans  of  Pompey;  but  Caesar  is  successful  with 
them  all.  To  Cato,  the  virtuous  man,  had  been  as¬ 
signed  the  government  of  Sicily;  but  Cato  finds  no 
Pompeian  army  ready  for  his  use,  and,  complaining 
bitterly  that  he  has  been  deceived  and  betrayed  by  the 
head  ,of  his  faction,  runs  away,  and  leaves  his  province 
to  Caesar’s  officers.  Caesar  determines  that  he  himself 
will  carry  the  war  into  Spain. 


126 


TI1E  CIVIL  WAR. — FIRST  BOOK. 


But  he  found  it  necessary  first  to  go  to  Borne,  and 
Caesar,  in  his  account  of  what  he  did  there,  hardly  tells 
us  the  whole  truth.  We  quite  go  along  with  him 
when  he  explains  to  us  that,  having  collected  what 
sort  of  a  Senate  he  could, — for  Pompey  had  taken  away 
with  him  such  senators  as  he  could  induce  to  follow 
him, — and  having  proposed  to  this  meagre  Senate  that 
ambassadors  should  be  sent  to  Pompey,  the  Senate 
accepted  his  suggestion  )  but  that  nobody  could  be  in¬ 
duced  to  go  on  such  an  errand.  Pompey  had  already 
declared  that  all  who  remained  at  Borne  were  his  ene¬ 
mies.  And  it  may  probably  be  true  that  Caesar,  as  he 
says,  found  a  certain  tribune  of  the  people  at  Borne 
who  opposed  him  in  all  that  he  was  doing,  though  we 
should  imagine  that  the  opposition  was  not  violent. 
But  his  real  object  in  going  to  Borne  was  to  lay  hand 
on  the  treasure  of  the  Bepublic, — the  sanctius  serari- 
um, — which  was  kept  in  the  temple  of  Saturn  for  special 
emergencies  of  State.  That  he  should  have  taken  this 
we  do  not  wonder  ; — but  we  do  wonder  that  he  should 
have  taken  the  trouble  to  say  that  he  did  not  do  so. 
He  professes  that  he  was  so  hindered  by  that  vexatious 
tribune,  that  he  could  not  accomplish  the  purposes  for 
which  he  had  come.  But  he  certainly  did  take  the 
money,  and  we  cannot  doubt  but  that  he  went  to  Borne 
especially  to  get  it. 

Caesar,  on  his  way  to  Spain,  goes  to  Marseilles, 
which,  under  the  name  of  Massilia,  was  at  this  time, 
as  it  is  now,  the  most  thriving  mercantile  port  on  the 
Mediterranean.  It  belonged  to  the  province  of  Further 
Gaul,  but  it  was  in  fact  a  colony  of  Greek  traders.  Its 
possession  was  now  necessary  to  Caesar.  The  magia- 


CAESAR  TOUCHES  AT  MARSEILLES.  127 


trates  of  the  town,  when  called  upon  for  their  adhesion, 
gave  a  most  sensible  answer.  They  protest  that  they 
are  very  fond  of  Caesar,  and  very  fond  of  Pompey.  They 
don’t  understand  all  these  affairs  of  Pome,  and  regret 
that  two  such  excellent  men  should  quarrel.  In  the  mean 
time  they  prefer  to  hold  their  own  town.  Caesar  speaks 
of  this  decision  as  an  injury  to  himself,  and  is  instigated 
by  such  wrongs  against  him  to  besiege  the  city,  which 
he  does  both  by  land  and  sea,  leaving  officers  there  for 
the  purpose,  and  going  on  himself  to  Spain. 

At  this  time  all  Spain  was  held  by  three  officers,  de¬ 
voted  to  the  cause  of  Pompey,  though,  from  what  has 
gone  before,  it  is  clear  that  Caesar  fears  nothing  from 
the  south.  Afranius  commanded  in  the  north  and  east, 
holding  the  southern  spurs  of  the  Pyrenees.  Petreius, 
who  was  stationed  in  Lusitania,  in  the  south-west, 
according  to  agreement,  hurries  up  to  the  assistance  of 
Afranius  as  soon  as  Caesar  approaches.  The  Pompeian 
and  Caesarian  armies  are  brought  into  close  quarters  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  Ilerda  (Lerida),  on  the  little  river 
Sicoris,  or  Segre,  which  runs  into  the  Ebro.  They  are 
near  the  mountains  here,  and  the  nature  of  the  fight¬ 
ing  is  controlled  by  the  rapidity  and  size  of  the  rivers, 
and  the  inequality  of  the  ground.  Caesar  describes 
the  campaign  with  great  minuteness,  imparting  to  it 
a  wonderful  interest  by  the  clearness  of  his  narrative. 
Afranius  and  Petreius  hold  the  town  of  Ilerda,  which 
is  full  of  provisions.  Caesar  is  very  much  pressed  by 
want,  as  the  corn  and  grass  have  not  yet  grown,  and 
the  country  supplies  of  the  former  year  are  almost  ex- 
hausted.  So  great  are  his  difficulties,  that  tidings  reach 
Rome  that  Afranius  has  conquered  him.  Hearing 


128 


THE  CIVIL  WAR.— FIRST  BOOK. 


this,  many  who  were  still  clinging  to  the  city,  doubtful 
as  to  the  side  they  would  take,  go  away  to  Pompey. 
But  Caesar  at  last  manages  to  make  Ilerda  too  hot  for 
the  Pompeian  generals.  He  takes  his  army  over  one 
liver  in  coracles,  such  as  he  had  seen  in  Britain  ;  he 
turns  the  course  of  another  ;  fords  a  third,  breaking  the 
course  of  the  stream  by  the  bulk  of  his  horses  ;  and 
bridges  a  fourth.  Afranius  and  Petreius  find  that 
they  must  leave  Ilerda,  and  escape  over  the  Ebro 
among  the  half-barbarous  tribe  further  south,  and  make 
theh*  way,  if  possible,  among  the  Celtibri, — getting 
out  of  Aragon  into  Castile,  as  the  division  was  made 
in  after-ages.  Caesar  giyes  us  as  one  reason  for  this 
intended  march  on  the  part  of  his  enemies,  that  Pompey 
was  well  known  by  those  tribes,  but  that  the  name 
of  Caesar  was  a  name  as  yet  obscure  to  the  barbarians. 
It  was  not,  however,  easy  for  Afranius  to  pass  over  the 
Ebro  without  Caesar’s  leave,  and  Caesar  will  by  no  means 
give  him  leave.  He  intercepts  the  Pompeians,  and  now 
turns  upon  them  that  terrible  engine  of  want  from  which 
he  had  suffered  so  much.  He  continues  so  to  drive  them 
about,  still  north  of  the  Ebro,  that  they  can  get  at  no 
water ;  and  at  last  they  are  compelled  to  surrender. 

During  the  latter  days  of  this  contest  the  Afranians, 
as  they  are  called —  Roman  legionaries,  as  are  the  soldiers 
of  Caesar — fraternise  with  their  brethren  in  Caesar’s 
camp,  and  there  is  something  of  free  intercourse  be¬ 
tween  the  two  Roman  armies.  The  upshot  is  that  the 
soldiers  of  Afranius  resolve  to  give  themselves  up  to 
Caesar,  bargaining,  however,  that  their  own  generals 
shall  be  secure.  Afranius  is  willing  enough ;  but  hin 


CjESAR  IN  TIIE  NORTH  OF  SPAIN.  129 


brother-general,  Petreius,  with  more  of  the  Eoman  at 
heart,  will  not  hear  of  it.  We  shall  hear  hereafter  the 
strange  fate  of  this  Petreius.  He  stops  the  conspiracy 
with  energy,  and  forces  from  his  own  men,  and  even  from 
Afranius,  an  oath  against  surrender.  He  orders  that  all 
Caesar’s  soldiers  found  in  their  camp  shall  he  killed,  and, 
as  Caesar  tells  us,  brings  back  the  affair  to  the  old  form 
of  war.  But  it  is  all  of  no  avail.  The  Afranians  are  so 
driven  by  the  want  of  water,  that  the  two  generals  are  at 
last  compelled  to  capitulate  and  lay  down  their  arms. 

Five  words  which  are  used  by  Caesar  in  the  descrip¬ 
tion  of  this  affair  give  us  a  strong  instance  of  his  con¬ 
ciseness  in  the  use  of  words,  and  of  the  capability  for 
conciseness  which  the  Latin  language  affords.  “Pre- 
mebantur  Afraniani  pabulatione,  aquabantur  aegre.” 
“  The  soldiers  of  Afranius  were  much  distressed  in  the 
matter  of  forage,  and  could  obtain  water  only  with  great 
difficulty.”  These  twenty  words  translate  those  five 
which  Caesar  uses,  perhaps  with  fair  accuracy;  but  many 
more  than  twenty  would  probably  have  been  used  by 
any  English  historian  in  dealing  with  the  same  facts. 

Caesar  treats  his  compatriots  with  the  utmost  gene¬ 
rosity.  So  many  conquered  Gauls  he  would  have  sold 
as  slaves,  slaughtering  their  leaders,  or  he  would  have 
cut  off  their  hands,  or  have  driven  them  down  upon 
the  river  and  have  allowed  them  to  perish  in  the 
waters.  But  his  conquered  foes  are  Eoman  soldiers, 
and  he  simply  demands  that  the  army  of  Afranius 
shall  be  disbanded,  and  that  the  leaders  of  it  shall  go, 
— whither  they  please.  He  makes  them  a  speech  in 
which  he  explains  how  badly  they  have  treated  him. 

a.  c.  vol.  iv.  i 


130 


THE  CIVIL  WAR.— FIRST  BOOK. 


Nevertheless  he  will  hurt  no  one.  He  has  home  it 
all,  and  will  bear  it,  patiently.  Let  the  generals  only 
leave  the  Province,  and  let  the  army  which  they  have 
led  be  disbanded.  He  will  not  keep  a  soldier  who 
does  not  wish  to  stay  with  him,  and  will  even  pay 
those  whom  Afranius  has  been  unable  to  pay  out  of 
his  own  funds.  Those  who  have  houses  and  land  in 
Spain  may  remain  there.  Those  Avho  have  none  he 
will  first  feed  and  afterwards  take  back,  if  not  to  Italy, 
at  any  rate  to  the  borders  of  Italy.  The  property 
which  his  own  soldiers  have  taken  from  them  in  the 
chances  of  war  shall  be  restored,  and  he  out  of  his  own 
pocket  will  compensate  his  own  men.  lie  performs 
his  promise,  and  takes  all  those  who  do  not  choose  to 
remain,  to  the  banks  of  the  Yar,  which  divides  the  Pro¬ 
vince  from  Italy,  and  there  sets  them  down,  full,  no 
doubt,  of  gratitude  to  their  conqueror.  Never  was 
there  such  clemency, — or,  we  may  say,  better  policy  ! 
Caesar’s  whole  campaign  in  Spain  had  occupied  him 
only  forty  days. 

In  the  mean  time  Decimus  Brutus,  to  whom  we 
remember  that  Caesar  had  given  the  command  of  the 
ships  which  he  prepared  against  the  Veneti  in  the  west 
of  Gaul,  and  who  was  hereafter  to  be  one  of  those  who 
slew  him  in  the  Capitol,  obtains  a  naval  victory  over 
the  much  more  numerous  fleet  of  the  Massilians. 
They  had  prepared  seventeen  big  ships, — “  naves 
longae  ”  they  are  called  by  Caesar, — and  of  these 
Brutus  either  destroys  or  takes  nine.  In  his  next 
book  Caesar  proceeds  to  tell  us  how  things  went  on  at 
Marseilles  both  by  sea  and  land  after  this  affair. 


CHAPTER  X. 

SECOND  BOOK  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. — THE  TAKINS  OF  MAR¬ 
SEILLES. — VARRO  IN  THE  SOUTH  OF  SPAIN. — THE  FATE 
OF  CURIO  BEFORE  UTICA. — B.C.  49. 

In  his  chronicle  of  the  Gallic  war,  Caesar  in  each  hook 
completed  the  narrative  of  a  year’s  campaign.  In 
treating  of  the  civil  war  he  devotes  the  first  and 
second  hooks  to  the  doings  of  one  year.  There  are 
three  distinct  episodes  of  the  year’s  campaign  narrated 
in  the  second ; — the  taking  of  Marseilles,  the  subju¬ 
gation  of  the  southern  province  of  Spain, — if  that  can 
be  said  to  he  subjugated  which  gave  itself  up  very 
readily, — and  the  destruction  of  a  Roman  army  in 
Africa  under  the  hands  of  a  barbarian  king.  Rut  of 
all  Caesar’s  writings  it  is  perhaps  the  least  interesting, 
as  it  tells  us  but  little  of  what  Caesar  did  himself, — 
and  in  fact  contains  chiefly  Caesar’s  records  of  the 
doings  of  his  lieutenants  by  sea  and  land. 

He  begins  by  telling  us  of  the  enormous  exertion} 
made  both  by  the  besiegers  and  by  the  besieged  at  Mas* 
silia,  which  town  was  now  held  by  Domitius  on  the 
part  of  Pompey, — to  supplement  whom  at  sea  a  cer¬ 
tain  Nasidius  was  sent  with  a  large  fleet.  Young 


132 


TEE  CIVIL  WAR.— SECOND  BOOR. 


Brutus,  as  will  be  remembered,  was  attacking  the  har¬ 
bour  on  behalf  of  Caesar,  and  had  already  obtained  a 
victory  over  the  Massilians  before  Nasidius  came  up  ; 
and  Trebonius,  also  on  the  part  of  Caesar,  was  besieg¬ 
ing  the  town  from  the  land.  This  Decimus  Brutus 
was  one  of  those  conspirators  who  afterwards  conspired 
against  Caesar  and  slew  him,  —  and  Trebonius  was 
another  of  the  number.  The  wise  Greeks  of  the 
city, — more  wise  than  fortunate,  however, — had  ex¬ 
plained  to  Caesar  when  he  first  expressed  his  wish  to 
have  the  town  on  his  side,  that  really  to  them  there 
was  no  difference  between  Pompey  and  Caesar,  both  of 
whom  they  loved  with  all  their  hearts, — but  they  had 
been  compelled  to  become  partisans  of  Pompey,  the 
^Pompeian  general  Domitius  being  the  first  to  enter 
their  town ;  and  now  they  find  themselves  obliged  to 
fight  as  Pompeians  in  defence  of  their  wealth  and  their 
homes.  Thus  driven  by  necessity,  they  fight  well  and  do 
their  very  best  to  favour  the  side  which  we  must  hence¬ 
forward  call  that  of  the  Pepublic  as  against  an  autocrat ; 
— for,  during  this  siege  of  Marseilles,  Caesar  had  been 
appointed  Dictator,  and  a  law  to  that  effect  had  been 
passed  at  Pome,  where  the  passing  of  such  a  law  was  no 
doubt  easy  enough  in  the  absence  of  Pompey,  of  the  con 
suls,  and  of  all  the  senators  who  were  Pompey’ s  friends. 

The  Massilians  had  now  chosen  their  side,  and  they 
do  their  very  best.  We  are  told  that  the  Caesarean 
troops,  from  the  high  ground  on  which  Trebonius  had 
placed  his  camp,  could  look  down  into  the  town,  and 
could  see  “  how  all  the  youth  who  had  been  left  in  the 
city,  and  all  the  elders  with  their  cliildren  and  wives, 


THE  SIEGE  OF  MARSEILLES. 


133 


and  the  sentinels  of  the  city,  either  stretched  their 
hands  to  heaven  from  the  walls,  or,  entering  the 
temples  of  the  immortal  gods,  and  throwing  themselves 
before  their  sacred  images,  prayed  that  the  heavenly 
powers  would  give  them  victory.  Nor  was  there  one 
among  them  who  did  not  believe  that  on  the  result 
of  that  day  depended  all  that  they  had,” — namely, 
liberty,  property,  and  life;  for  the  Massilians,  doubt¬ 
less,  had  heard  of  Avaricum,  of  Alesia,  and  of  Uxello- 
dunum.  “  When  the  battle  was  begun,”  says  Caesar, 
“  the  Massilians  failed  not  at  all  in  valour ;  but, 
mindful  of  the  lessons  they  had  just  received  from  their 
townsmen,  fought  with  the  belief  that  the  present  was 
their  only  opportunity  of  doing  aught  for  their  own  pre¬ 
servation  ;  and  that  to  those  who  should  fall  in  battle, 
loss  of  life  would  only  come  a  little  sooner  than  to  the 
others,  who  would  have  to  undergo  the  same  fate, 
should  the  city  be  taken.”  Caesar,  as  he  wrote  this, 
doubtless  thought  of  what  he  had  done  in  Gaul  when 
policy  demanded  from  him  an  extremity  of  cruelty;  and, 
so  writing,  he  enhanced  the  clemency  with  which,  as  he 
is  about  to  tell  us,  he  afterwards  treated  the  Massilians. 
When  the  time  came  it  did  not  suit  him  to  depopulate 
a  rich  town,  the  trade  of  whose  merchants  was  benefi¬ 
cial  both  to  Rome  and  to  the  Province.  He  is  about 
to  tell  us  of  his  mercy,  and  therefore  explains  to  us 
beforehand  how  little  was  mercy  expected  from  him. 
We  feel  that  every  line  lie  writes  is  weighed,  though 
the  time  for  such  weighing  must  havePeen  very  short 
with  one  whose  hands  were  so  full  as  were  always  the 
hands  of  Caesar. 


134 


THE  CIVIL  WAR.—  SECOND  BOOK . 


Nasidius,  whom  we  may  call  Pompey’s  admiral, 
was  of  no  use  at  all.  The  Massilians,  tempted  by  his 
coming,  attack  bravely  the  ship  which  bears  the  flag 
of  young  Brutus  ;  but  young  Brutus  is  too  quick  for 
them,  and  the  unhappy  Massilians  run  two  of  their 
biggest  vessels  against  each  other  in  their  endeavour 
to  pin  that  of  the  Caesarean  admiral  between  them. 
The  Massilian  fleet  is  utterly  dispersed.  Five  are 
sunk,  four  are  taken  :  one  gets  off  with  bTasidius,  who 
runs  away,  making  no  effort  to  fight  :  who  has  been 
sent  there, — so  Caesar  hints, — by  Pompey,  not  to  give 
assistance,  but  only  to  pretend  to  give  assistance. 
One  ship  gets  back  into  the  harbour  with  the  sad 
tidings  ;  and  the  Massilians — despairing  only  for  a 
moment  at  the  first  blush  of  the  bad  news — determine 
that  their  walls  may  still  be  defended. 

The  town  was  very  well  supplied  with  such  things 
as  were  needed  for  defence,  the  people  being  a  provi¬ 
dent  people,  well  instructed  and  civilised,  with  means 
at  their  command.  We  are  told  of  great  poles  twelve 
feet  long,  with  sharp  iron  heads  to  them,  which  the 
besiegers  could  throw  with  such  force  from  the  engines 
on  their  walls  as  to  drive  them  through  four  tiers  of 
the  wicker  crates  or  stationary  shields  which  the  Caesa- 
reans  built  up  for  their  protection, — believing  that  no 
force  could  drive  a  weapon  through  them.  As  we 
read  of  this  we  cannot  but  think  of  Armstrong  and 
Whitfield  guns,  and  iron  plates,  and  granite  batteries, 
and  earthworks.  These  terrible  darts,  thrown  from 
“  balistae,”  are  very  sore  upon  the  Caesareans;  they 
therefore  contrive  an  immense  tower,  so  high  that  it 


THE  SIEGE  OF  MARSEILLES. 


135 


cannot  be  reached  by  any  weapon,  so  built  that  no 
wood  or  material  subject  to  fire  shall  be  on  the  out¬ 
side, — which  they  erect  story  by  story,  of  very  great 
strength.  And  as  they  raise  this  step  by  step,  each 
story  is  secured  against  fire  and  against  the  enemy. 
The  reader, — probably  not  an  engineer  himself, — is 
disposed  to  think  as  he  struggles  through  this  minute 
description  of  tire  erection  which  Caesar  gives,  and 
endeavours  to  realise  the  'way  in  which  it  is  done,  that 
Caesar  must  himself  have  served  specially  as  an  engineer. 
But  in  truth  he  was  not  at  this  siege  himself,  and  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  planning  of  the  tower,  and 
must  in  this  instance  at  least  have  got  a  written  de¬ 
scription  from  his  officer, — as  he  probably  did  before 
when  he  built  the  memorable  bridge  over  the  Rhine. 
And  when  the  tower  is  finished,  they  make  a  long 
covered  way  or  shed, — musculum  or  muscle  Caesar  calls 
it ;  and  with  this  they  form  for  themselves  a  passage 
from  the  big  tower  to  a  special  point  in  the  walls  of 
the  town.  This  muscle  is  so  strong  with  its  sloping 
roof  that  nothing  thrown  upon  it  will  break  or  burn  it. 
The  Massilians  try  tubs  of  flaming  pitch,  and  great  frag¬ 
ments  of  rock ;  but  these  simply  slip  to  the  ground,  and 
are  pulled  away  with  long  poles  and  forks.  And  the 
Caesareans,  from  the  height  of  their  great  tower,  have 
eo  terrible  an  advantage  !  The  Massilians  cannot  de¬ 
fend  their  wall,  and  a  breach  is  made,  or  almost  made. 

The  Massilians  can  do  no  more.  The  very  gods  are 
against  them.  So  they  put  on  the  habit  of  supplicants, 
and  go  forth  to  the  conquerors.  They  will  give  their 
city  to  Caesar.  Caisar  is  expected.  Will  Trebonius 


136 


THE  CIVIL  WAR.— SECOND  BOOK. 


be  so  good  as  to  wait  till  Ccesar  comes  ?  If  Trebonius 
should  proceed  with  his  work  so  that  the  soldiers 
should  absolutely  get  into  the  town,  then  ; — Trebonius 
knows  very  well  what  would  happen  then.  A  little 
delay  cannot  hurt.  Nothing  shall  be  done  till  Ccesar 
conies.  As  it  happens,  Caesar  has  already  especially 
ordered  that  the  city  shall  be  spared ;  and  a  kind  of 
truce  is  made,  to  endure  till  Caesar  shall  come  and 
take  possession.  Trebonius  has  a  difficulty  in  keeping 
his  soldiers  from  the  plunder  ;  but  he  does  restrain 
them,  and  besiegers  and.  besieged  are  at  rest,  and  wait 
for  Caesar. 

But  these  Massilians  are  a  crafty  people.  The 
Caesarean  soldiers,  having  agreed  to  wait,  take  it 
easily,  and  simply  amuse  themselves  in  these  days  of 
waiting.  When  they  are  quite  off  their  guard,  and  a 
high  wind  favours  the  scheme,  the  Massilians  rush  out 
and  succeed  in  burning  the  tower,  and  the  muscle,  and 
the  rampart,  and  the  sheds,  and  all  the  implements. 
Even  though  the  tower  was  built  with  brick,  it  burns 
freely, — so  great  is  the  wind.  Then  Trebonius  goes  to 
work,  and  does  it  all  again.  Because  there  is  no  more 
wood  left  round  about  the  camp,  he  makes  a  rampart 
of  a  new  kind, — hitherto  unheard  of, — with  bricks. 
Doubtless  the  Caesarean  soldiers  had  first  to  make  the 
bricks,  and  we  can  imagine  what  were  their  feelings  in 
reference  to  the  Massilians.  But  however  that  may 
be,  they  work  so  well  and  so  hard  that  the  Massilians 
soon  see  that  their  late  success  is  of  no  avail.  Nothing 
is  left  to  them.  Neither  perfidy  nor  valour  can  avail 
them,  and  now  again  they  give  themselves  up.  They 


THE  SIEGE  OF  MARSEILLES. 


137 


are  starved  and  suffering  from  pestilence,  tlieir  fortifi¬ 
cations  are  destroyed,  they  have  no  hope  of  aid  from 
without, — and  now  they  give  themselves  up, — intend¬ 
ing  no  fraud.  “Sese  dedere  sine  fraude  constituent.” 
Pomitius,  the  Pompeian  general,  manages  to  escape  in 
a  ship.  He  starts  with  three  ships,  but  the  one  in 
which  he  himself  sails  alone  escapes  the  hands  of 
“  young  ”  Brutus.  Surely  now  will  Marseilles  be 
treated  with  worse  treatment  than  that  which  fell  on 
the  Gaulish  cities.  But  such  is  by  no  means  Caesar’s 
will.  Caesar  takes  their  public  treasure  and  their 
ships,  and  reminding  them  that  he  spares  them  rather 
for  their  name  and  old  character  than  for  any  merits 
of  theirs  shown  towards  him,  leaves  two  legions  among 
them,  and  goes  to  Rome.  At  Avaricum,  when  the 
Gauls  had  fought  to  defend  their  own  liberties,  he  had 
destroyed  everybody; — at  Alesia  he  had  decreed  the 
death  of  every  inhabitant  when  they  had  simply  asked 
him  leave  to  pass  through  his  camp; — at  Uxellodunum 
he  had  cut  off  the  hands  and  poked  out  the  eyes  of 
Gauls  who  had  dared  to  fight  for  their  country.  But 
the  Gauls  were  barbarians  whom  it  was  necessary  that 
Caesar  should  pacify.  The  Massilians  were  Greeks, 
and  a  civilised  people, — and  might  be  useful. 

Before  coming  on  to  Marseilles  there  had  been  a 
little  more  for  Ca3sar  to  do  in  Spain,  where,  as  was 
told  in  the  last  chapter,  he  had  just  compelled  Afranius 
and  Petreius  to  lay  down  their  arms  and  disband  their 
legions.  Joined  with  them  had  been  a  third  Pompeian 
general,  one  Varro, — a  distinguished  man,  though  not, 
perhaps,  a  great  general, — of  whom  Caesar  tells  us  that 


133 


1IIE  CIVIL  WAR.— SECOND  BOOK. 


with  his  Roman  policy  he  veered  between  Pompeian 
and  Caesarean  tactics  till,  unfortunately  for  himself, 
he  declared  for  Pompey  and  the  wrong  side,  when 
he  heard  that  Afranius  was  having  his  own  way  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  Lerida.  But  Yarro  is  in  the 
south  of  Spain,  in  Andalusia, — or  Baetica,  as  it  was 
then  called, — and  in  this  southern  province  of  Spain 
it  seems  that  Caesar’s  cause  was  more  popular  than 
that  of  Pompey.  Caesar,  at  any  rate,  has  but  little 
difficulty  with  Yarro.  The  Pompeian  officer  is  deserted 
by  his  legions,  and  gives  himself  up  very  quickly. 
Caesar  does  not  care  to  tell  us  what  he  did  with  Yarro, 
but  we  know  that  he  treated  liis  brother  Roman  with 
the  utmost  courtesy.  Yarro  was  a  very  learned  man, 
and  a  friend  of  Cicero’s,  and  one  who  wrote  books,  and 
was  a  credit  to  Rome  as  a  man  of  letters  if  not  as  a 
general.  We  are  told  that  he  wrote  490  volumes,  and 
that  he  lived  to  be  eighty-eight, — a  fate  very  uncom¬ 
mon  with  Romans  who  meddled  with  public  affairs  in 
these  days.  Caesar  made  everything  smooth  in  the 
south  of  Spain,  restoring  the  money  and  treasures 
which  Yarro  had  taken  from  the  towns,  and  giving 
thanks  to  everybody.  Then  he  went  on  over  the 
Pyrenees  to  Marseilles,  and  made  things  smooth  there. 

But  in  the  mean  time  things  were  not  at  all  smooth 
in  Africa.  The  name  of  Africa  was  at  this  time  given 
to  a  small  province  belonging  to  the  Republic,  lying  to 
tlie  east  of  Numidia,  in  which  Carthage  had  stood 
when  Cartilage  was  a  city,  containing  that  promontory 
which  juts  out  towards  Sicily,  and  having  Utica  as 
its  Roman  capital.  It  has  been  already  said  that 


CjBSAR  IN  THE  SOUTH  OF  SPAIN. 


130 


■when  Caesar  determined  to  gain  possession  of  certain 
provinces  of  the  Republic  before  be  followed  Pompey 
across  the  Adriatic,  be  sent  a  lieutenant  with  three 
legions  into  Sicily,  desiring  him  to  go  on  to  Africa  as 
soon  as  things  should  have  been  arranged  in  the  island 
after  the  Caesarean  fashion.  The  Sicilian  matter  is 
not  very  troublesome,  as  Cato,  the  virtuous  man,  in 
whose  hands  the  government  of  the  island  had  been 
intrusted  on  behalf  of  the  Republic,  leaves  it  on  the 
arrival  of  the  Caesarean  legions,  complaining  bitterly  of 
Pompey’s  conduct.  Then  Caesar’s  lieutenant  goes  over 
to  Africa  with  two  legions,  as  commanded,  proposing 
to  his  army  the  expulsion  of  one  Attius  Yams,  who 
had,  according  to  Caesar’s  story,  taken  irregular  pos¬ 
session  of  the  province,  keeping  it  on  behalf  of  Pom- 
pey,  but  not  allowing  the  governor  appointed  by  the 
Republic  so  much  as  to  put  his  foot  on  the  shore. 
This  lieutenant  was  a  great  favourite  of  Caesar,  by 
name  Curio,  who  had  been  elected  tribune  of  the 
people  just  when  the  Senate  was  making  its  attempt  to 
recall  Caesar  from  his  command  in  Gaul.  In  that 
emergency,  Curio  as  tribune  had  been  of  service  to 
Caesar,  and  Caesar  loved  the  young  man.  He  was  one 
of  those  who,  though  noble  by  birth,  had  flung  them¬ 
selves  among  the  people,  as  Catiline  had  done  and 
Clodius, — unsteady,  turbulent,  unscrupulous,  vicious, 
needy,  fond  of  pleasure,  rapacious,  but  well  educated, 
brave,  and  clever.  Caesar  himself  had  been  such  a 
man  in  his  youth,  and  could  easily  forgive  such  faults 
in  the  character  of  one  who,  in  addition  to  such  virtues 
as  have  been  named,  possessed  that  farther  and  greater 


140 


THE  CIVIL  WAR.— SECOND  BOOK. 


virtue  of  loving  Caesar.  Caesar  expected  great  things 
from  Curio,  and  trusted  him  thoroughly.  Curio,  with 
many  ships  and  his  two  legions,  lands  in  Africa,  and 
prepares  to  win  the  province  for  his  great  friend.  He 
does  obtain  some  little  advantage,  so  that  he  is  called 
“  Imperator”  by  his  soldiers, — a  name  not  given  to  a 
general  till  he  lias  been  victorious  in  the  field ;  but  it 
seems  clear,  from  Caesar’s  telling  of  the  story,  that 
Curio’s  own  officers  and  own  soldiers  distrusted  him, 
and  were  doubtful  whether  they  would  follow  him,  or 
would  take  possession  of  the  ships  and  return  to  Sicily; 
— or  would  go  over  to  Attius  Yarus,  who  had  been  their 
commander  in  Italy  before  they  had  deserted  from 
Pompey  to  Caesar.  A  council  of  war  is  held,  and  there 
is  much  doubt.  It  is  not  only  or  chiefly  of  Attius 
Yarus,  their  Roman  enemy,  that  they  are  afraid  ;  but 
there  is  Juba  in  their  neighbourhood,  the  king  of 
Humidia,  who  will  certainly  fight  for  Yarus  and 
against  Curio.  He  is  Pompey’s  declared  friend,  and 
equally  declared  as.  Caesar’s  foe.  He  has,  too,  special 
grounds  of  quarrel  against  Curio  himself ;  and  if  he 
comes  in  person  with  his  army, — bringing  such  an 
army  as  he  can  bring  if  he  pleases, — it  will  certainly 
go  badly  with  Curio,  should  Curio  be  distant  from  his 
camp.  Then  Curio,  not  content  with  his  council  of 
war,  and  anxious  that  his  soldiers  should  support  him 
in  his  desire  to  fight,  makes  a  speech  to  the  legion- 
aries.  We  must  remember,  of  course,  that  Caesar  gives 
us  the  words  of  this  speech,  and  that  Caesar  must 
himself  have  put  the  words  together. 

It  is  begun  in  the  third  person.  He, — that  is  Curio, 


TEE  STORY  OF  CURIO. 


141 


—  tells  the  men  how  useful  they  were  tu  Caesar  at 
Corfinium,  the  town  at  which  they  went  over  from 
Pompey  to  Caesar.  But  in  the  second  sentence  he 
breaks  into  the  first  person  and  puts  the  very  words 
into  Curio’s  mouth.  “  For  you  and  your  services,”  he 
says,  “  were  copied  by  all  the  towns  ;  nor  is  it  without 
cause  that  Caesar  thinks  kindly  of  you,  and  the  Pom¬ 
peians  unkindly.  For  Pompey,  having  lost  no  battle, 
but  driven  by  the  result  of  your  deed,  fled  from  Italy. 
Me,  whom  Caesar  holds  most  dear,  and  Sicily  and 
Africa  without  which  he  cannot  hold  Borne  and  Italy, 
Caesar  has  intrusted  to  your  honour.  There  are  some 
who  advise  you  to  desert  me, — for  what  can  be  more 
desirable  to  such  men  than  that  they  at  the  same 
time  should  circumvent  me,  and  fasten  upon  you  a 
foul  crime  %  ...  .  But  you, — have  you  not  heard 

of  the  things  done  by  Caesar  in  Spain, — two  armies 
beaten,  two  generals  conquered,  two  provinces  gained, 
and  all  this  done  in  forty  days  from  that  on  which 
Caesar  first  saw  his  enemy  ?  Can  those  who,  uninjured, 
were  unable  to  stand  against  him,  resist  him  now  that 
they  are  .conquered  ?  And  you,  who  followed  Caesar 
when  victory  on  his  side  was  uncertain,  now  that 
fortune  has  declared  herself,  will  you  go  over  to  the 
conquered  side  when  you  are  about  to  realise  the  re¬ 
ward  of  your  zeal?  ....  But  perhaps,  though 
you  love  Caesar,  you  distrust  me.  I  will  not  say  much 
of  my  own  deserts  towards  you, — which  are  indeed 
less  as  yet  than  I  had  wished  or  you  had  expected.” 
Then,  having  thus  declared  that  he  will  not  speak  of 
himself,  he  does  venture  to  say  a  few  words  on  the  sub- 


142 


TEE  CIVIL  WAR.— SECOND  BOOK. 


ject.  “  But  why  should  I  pass  over  my  own  wrork, 
and  the  result  that  has  been  as  yet  achieved,  and  my 
own  fortune  in  war  ?  Is  it  displeasing  to  you  that  I 
brought  over  the  whole  army,  safe,  without  losing  a 
ship  ?  That,  as  I  came,  at  my  first  onslaught,  I  should 
have  dispersed  the  fleet  of  the  enemy?  That,  in 
two  days,  I  should  have  been  twice  victorious  with 
my  cavalry ;  that  I  should  have  cut  out  two  hundred 
transports  from  the  enemy’s  harbour  ;  that  I  should 
have  so  harassed  the  enemy  that  neither  by  land  nor 
sea  could  they  get  food  to  supply  their  wants  ?  Will 
it  please  you  to  repudiate  such  fortune  and  such  guid¬ 
ance,  and  to  connect  yourself  with  the  disgrace  at  Cor- 
finium,  the  flight  from  Italy,” — namely,  Pompey’s  flight 
to  Dyrrachium, — “  the  surrender  of  Spain,  and  the  evils 
of  this  African  war?  I  indeed  have  wished  to  be 
called  Caesar’s  soldier,  and  you  have  called  me  your 
Imperator.  If  it  repents  you  of  having  done  so,  I  give 
you  back  the  compliment.  Give  me  back  my  own 
name,  lest  it  seem  that  in  scorn  you  have  called  me 
by  that  title  of  honour.” 

This  is  very  spirited ;  and  the  merely  rhetorical 
assertion  by  Caesar  that  Curio  thus  spoke  to  his  sol¬ 
diers  is  in  itself  interesting,  as  showing  us  the  way 
in  which  the  legionaries  were  treated  by  their  com¬ 
manders,  and  in  which  the  greatest  general,  of  that  or 
of  any  age,  thought  it  natural  that  a  leader  should 
address  his  troops.  It  is  of  value,  also,  as  showing  the 
difficulty  of  keeping  any  legion  true  Jo  either  side  in 
a  civil  war,  in  which,  on  either  side,  the  men  must 
fight  for  a  commander  they  had  learned  to  respect, 


THE  STORY  OF  CURIO „ 


143 


and  against  a  commander  they  respected, — the  com¬ 
mander  in  each  case  being  a  Roman  Imperator. 
Curio,  too,  as  we  know,  was  a  man  who  on  such  an 
occasion  could  use  words.  But  that  he  used  the  words 
here  put  into  his  mouth,  or  any  words  like  them,  is 
very  improbable.  Caesar  was  anxious  to  make  the  best 
apology  he  could  for  the  gallant  young  friend  who 
had  perished  in  his  cause,  and  has  shown  his  love 
by  making  the  man  he  loved  memorable  to  all  pos- 
terity. 

But  before  the  dark  hour  comes  upon  him  the  young 
man  has  a  gleam  of  success,  which,  had  he  really 
spoken  the  words  put  into  his  mouth  by  Caesar,  would 
have  seemed  to  justify  them.  He  attacks  the  army  of 
his  fellow-Roman,  Yarns,  and  beats  it,  driving  it  back 
into  Utica.  He  then  resolves  to  besiege  the  town, 
and  Caesar  implies  that  he  would  have  been  successful 
through  the  Caesarean  sympathies  of  the  townsmen, — 
had  it  not  been  for  the  approach  of  the  terrible  Juba. 
Then  comes  a  rumour  which  reaches  Curio,  —  and 
which  reaches  Yarus  too  inside  the  town, — that  the 
Humidian  king  is  hurrying  to  the  scene  with  all  his 
forces.  He  has  finished  another  affair  that  he  had  on 
hand,  and  can  now  look  to  his  Roman  friends, — and 
to  his  Roman  enemies.  Juba  craftily  sends  forward 
his  prefect,  or  lieutenant,  Sabura,  with  a  small  force 
of  cavalry,  and-  Curio  is  led  to  imagine  that  Juba  has 
not  come,  and  that  Sabura  has  been  sent  with  scantv 
aid  to  the  relief  of  Yarus.  Surely  he  can  give  a  good 
account  of  Sabura  and  that  small  body  of  Humidiax 
horsemen.  We  see  from  the  very  first  that  Curio  is 


144 


THE  CIVIL  WAR.- SECOND  BOOK. 


doomed.  Cossar,  in  a  few  touching  words,  makes  liis 
apology.  “  The  young  man’s  youth  had  much  to  do 
with  it,  and  his  high  spirit;  his  former  success,  too, 
and  his  own  faith  in  his  own  good  fortune.”  There  ia 
no  word  of  reproach.  Curio  makes  another  speech  to 
his  soldiers.  “  Hasten  to  your  prey,”  he  says,  “  hasten 
to  your  glory  !  ”  They  do  hasten, — after  such  a  fashion 
that  when  the  foremost  of  them  reach  Sahura’s  troops, 
the  hindermost  of  them  are  scattered  far  hack  on  the 
road.  They  are  cut  to  pieces  by  Juba.  Curio  is  in¬ 
vited  by  one  of  his  officers  to  escape  back  to  his  tent. 
Bnt  Caesar  tells  us  that  Curio  in  that  last  moment 
replied  that  having  lost  the  army  with  which  Caesar 
had  trusted  him,  he  would  never  again  look  Caesar  in 
the  face.  That  he  did  say  some  such  words  as  these, 
and  that  they  were  repeated  by  that  officer  to  Caesar, 
is  probable  enough.  “  So,  fighting,  he  is  slain;” — 
and  there  is  an  end  of  the  man  whom  Caesar  loved. 

What  then  happened  was  very  sad- for  a  Roman  army. 
Many  hurry  down  to  the  ships  at  the  sea ;  but  there  is 
so  much  terror,  so  much  confusion,  and  things  are  so 
badly  done,  that  but  very  few  get  over  to  Sicily.  The 
remainder  endeavour  to  give  themselves  up  to  Yarns ; 
after  doing  which,  could  they  have  done  it,  their  posi¬ 
tion  would  not  have  been  very  bad.  A  Roman  surren¬ 
dering  to  a  Roman  would,  at  the  Avorst,  but  find  that 
ne  was  compelled  to  change  his  party.  Rut  Juba  comes 
up  and  claims  them  as  his  prey,  and  Yarns  does  not 
dare  to  oppose  the  barbarian  king.  Juba  kills  the  most 
sf  them,  but  sends  a  few,  whom  he  thinks  may  serve 
kis  purpose  and  add  to  his  glory,  back  to  his  own  king- 


KING  JUBA. 


145 


dom.  In  doing  which  Juba  behaved  no  worse  than 
Caesar  habitually  behaved  in  Gaul ;  but  Caesar  always 
writes  as  though  not  only  a  Roman  must  regard  a  Ro¬ 
man  as  more  than  a  man,  but  as  though  also  all  others 
must  so  regard  Romans.  And  by  making  such  assertions 
in  their  own  behalf,  Romans  were  so  regarded.  We 
are  then  told  that  the  barbarian  king  of  hTumidia  rode 
into  Utica  triumphant,  with  Roman  senators  in  his 
train ;  and  the  names  of  two  special  Roman  senators 
Cuesar  sends  down  to  posterity  as  having  been  among 
that  base  number.  As  far  as  we  can  spare  them,  they 
shall  be  spared. 

Of  Juba  the  king,  and  of  his  fate,  we  shall  heal 
again. 


A.  c.  voh  iv. 


CHAPTER  XI. 


THIRD  BOOK  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR. — C2ESAR  FOLLOWS  POMrEY 
INTO  ILLYRIA. — THE  LINES  OF  PETRA  AND  THE  BATTLE  OF 
PHARSALIA.  — B.  C.  48. 

CiESAR  begins  the  last  book  of  bis  last  Commentary  by 
telling  us  that  this  was  the  year  in  which  he  Caesar, 
was  by  the  law  permitted  to  name  a  consul,  lie  names 
Publius  Servilius  to  act  in  conjunction  with  himself. 
The  meaning  of  this  is,  that,  as  Caesar  had  been  created 
Dictator,  Pompey  having  taken  with  him  into  Illyria 
the  consuls  of  the  previous  year,  Caesar  was  now  the 
only  magistrate  under  whose  authority  a  consul  could 
be  elected.  No  doubt  he  did  choose  the  man,  but  the 
election  was  supposed  to  have  been  made  in  accordance 
with  the  forms  of  the  Republic.  He  remained  at  Rome 
as  Dictator  for  eleven  days,  during  which  he  made  vari¬ 
ous  laws,  of  which  the  chi&f  object  was  to  lessen  the 
insecurity  caused  by  the  disruption  of  the  ordinary 
course  of  things;  and  then  he  went  down  to  Brindisi  on 
the  track  of  Pompey.  He  had  twelve  legions  with  him, 
but  he  was  badly  off  for  ships  in  which  to  transport 
them ;  and  he  owns  that  the  health  of  the  men  is  bad, 
an  autumn  in  the  south  of  Italy  having  been  very  severe 


POMPEY' S  ARMY. 


147 


on  men  accustomed  to  the  healthy  climate  of  Gaul  and 
the  north  of  Spain.  Pompey,  he  tells  us,  had  had  a 
whole  year  to  prepare  his  army, — a  whole  year,  without 
warfare,  and  had  collected  men  and  ships  and  money, 
and  all  that  support  which  assent  gives,  from  Asia  and 
the  Cyclades,  from  Corcyra,  Athens,  Bithynia,  Cilicia, 
Phoenicia,  Egypt,  and  the  free  states  of  Achaia.  He 
had  with  him  nine  Boman  legions,  and  is  expecting  two 
more  with  his  father-in-law  Scipio  out  of  Syria.  He  has 
three  thousand  archers  from  Crete,  from  Sparta,  and 
from  Pontus ;  he  has  twelve  hundred  slingers,  and  he 
has  seven  thousand  cavalry  from  Galatia,  Cappadocia, 
and  Thrace.  A  valorous  prince  from  Macedonia  had 
brought  him  two  hundred  men,  all  mounted.  Pive  hun¬ 
dred  of  Galatian  and  German  cavalry,  who  had  been  left 
to  overawe  Ptolemy  in  Egypt,  are  brought  to  Pompey 
by  the  filial  care  of  young  Cnaeus.  He  too  had  armed 
eight  hundred  of  their  own  family  retainers,  and  had 
brought  them  armed.  Antiochus  of  Commagena  sends 
him  two  hundred  mounted  archers, — mercenaries,  how¬ 
ever,  not  sent  without  promise  of  high  payment.  Dar- 
dani, — men  from  the  land  of  old  Troy,  Bessi,  from  the 
banks  of  the  Hebrus,  Thessalians  and  Macedonians, 
have  all  been  crowded  together  under  Pompey’s  stan¬ 
dard.  We  feel  that  Caesar’s  mouth  waters  as  he  re¬ 
counts  them.  But  we  feel  also  that  he  is  preparing  for 
the  triumphant  record  in  which  he  is  about  to  tell  us 
that  all  these  swarms  did  he  scatter  to  the  winds 
of  heaven  with  the  handful  of  Boman  legionaries 
which  he  at  last  succeeded  in  landing  on  the  shores 
of  Illyria. 


148 


THE  CIVIL  WAR. -THIRD  LOOK. 


Pompey  lias  also  collected  from  all  parts  “  frumenti 
vim  maximam” — “a  great  power  of  corn  indeed,”  as 
an  Irishman  would  say,  translating  the  words  literally. 
And  he  has  covered  the  seas  with  his  ships,  so  as  to 
hinder  Caesar  from  coming  out  of  Italy.  He  has  eight 
vice-admirals  to  command  his  various  fleets, —  all  of 
whom  Caesar  names  ;  and  over  them  all,  as  admiral-in¬ 
chief,  is  Bibulus,  who  was  joint-consul  with  Caesar  be¬ 
fore  Caesar  went  to  Gaul,  and  who  was  so  harassed 
during  his  consulship  by  the  Caesareans  that  he  shut 
himself  up  in  his  house,  and  allowed  Caesar  to  rule  as 
sole  consul.  How  he  is  about  to  take  his  revenge ; 
but  the  vengeance  of  such  a  one  as  Bibulus  cannot 
reach  Caesar. 

Caesar  having  led  his  legions  to  Brindisi,  makes  them 
a  speech  which  almost  beats  in  impudence  anything 
that  he  ever  said  or  did.  He  tells  them  that  as  they 
have  now  nearly  finished  all  his  work  for  him  ; — they 
have  only  got  to  lay  low  the  Republic  with  Pompey 
the  Great,  and  all  the  forces  of  the  Republic — to  which, 
however,  have  to  be  added  King  Ptolemy  in  Egypt, 
King  Pharnaces  in  Asia,  and  King  Juba  in  Humidia  ; — 
they  had  better  leave  behind  them  at  Brindisi  all  theii 
little  property,  the  spoils  of  former  wars,  so  that  they 
may  pack  the  tighter  in  the  boats  in  which  he  means 
to  send  them  across  to  Illyria, — if  only  they  can  escape 
the  mercies  of  ex-Ccnsul  Admiral  Bibulus.  There  is 
no  suggestion  that  at  any  future  time  they  will  recover 
their  property.  Eor  them  future  hopes  they  are  to  trust 
entirely  to  Cajsar’s  generosity.  With  one  shout  they 
declare  their  readiness  to  obey  him.  He  takes  over 


CAESAR  CROSSES  OUT  OF  ITALY  INTO  EPIRUS.  149 


seven  legions,  escaping  the  dangers  of  those  “  rocks  of 
evil  fame/’  the  Acroceraunia  of  which  Horace  tells  us, 
— and  escaping  Bibulus  also,  who  seems  to  have  shut 
himself  up  in  his  ship  as  he  did  before  in  his  house  dur¬ 
ing  the  consulship.  Caesar  seems  to  have  made  the  pas¬ 
sage  with  the  conviction  that  had  he  Mien  into  the 
hands  of  Bibulus  everything  would  have  been  lost.  And 
with  ordinary  precaution  and  diligence  on  the  part  of 
Bibulus  such  would  have  been  the  result.  Yet  he  makes 
the  attempt, — trusting  to  the  Fortune  of  Caesar, — and 
lie  succeeds.  He  lands  at  a  place  which  he  calls  Pal 
seste  on  the  coast  of  Epirus,  considerably  to  the  south 
of  Dyrrachium,  in  Illyria.  At  Dyrracliium  Pompey  had 
landed  the  year  before,  and  there  is  now  stored  that 
wealth  of  provision  of  which  Caesar  has  spoken.  But 
Bibulus  at  last  determines  to  be  active,  and  he  does 
manage  to  fall  upon  the  empty  vessels  which  Caesar 
sends  back  to  fetch  the  remainder  of  his  army.  “  Hav¬ 
ing  come  upon  thirty  of  them/ he  falls  upon  them  with 
all  the  wrath  occasioned  by  his  own  want  of  circum¬ 
spection  and  grief,  and  burns  them.  And  in  the  same 
fire  he  kills  the  sailors  and  the  masters  of  the  vessels, 
— hoping  to  deter  others,”  Caesar  tells  us,  “  by  the  se¬ 
verity  of  the  punishment.”  After  that  we  are  not  sorry 
to  hear  that  he  potters  about  on  the  seas  very  busy, 
but  still  incapable,  and  that  he  dies,  as  it  seems,  of  a 
broken  heart.  ■  He  does  indeed  catch  one  ship  after¬ 
wards, — not  laden  writh  soldiers,  but  coming  on  a  pri¬ 
vate  venture,  with  children,  servants,  and  suchlike,  de¬ 
pendants  and  followers  of  Caesar’s  camp.  All  these, 
including  the  children,  Bit  ulus  slaughters,  down  to 


150 


THE  CIVIL  WAR.— THIRD  BOOK. 


the  smallest  child.  We  have,  however,  to  remember 
that  the  story  is  told  hy  Cassar,  and  that  Csesar  did  not 
love  Bibulus. 

Marc  Antony  has  been  left  at  Brindisi  in  command 
of  the  legions  which  Csesar  could  not  bring  across  at  his 
first  trip  for  want  of  sufficient  ship-room,  and  is  pressed 
very  much  by  Caesar  to  make  the  passage.  There  are 
attempts  at  treaties  made,  but  as  we  read  the  account 
we  feel  that  Caesar  is  only  obtaining  the  delay  which 
is  necessary  to  him  till  he  shall  have  been  joined  by 
Antony.  We  are  told  how  by  this  time  the  camps  of 
Caesar  and  Pompey  have  been  brought  so  near  toge¬ 
ther  that  they  are  separated  only  by  the  river  Apsus, — 
for  Caesar  had  moved  northwards  towards  Pompey’s 
stronghold.  And  the  soldiers  talked  together  across  the 
stream ;  “  nor,  the  while,  was  any  weapon  thrown, — by 
compact  between  those  who  talked.”  Then  Caesar 
sends  Vatinius,  as  his  ambassador,  down  to  the  river  to 
talk  of  peace ;  and  Vatinius  demands  with  a  loud  voice 
“  whether  it  should  not  be  allowed  to  citizens  to  send 
legates  to  citizens,  to  treat  of  peace ; — a  thing  that  has 
been  allowed  even  to  deserters  from  the  wilds  of  the  Py¬ 
renees  and  to  robbers, — especially  with  so  excellent  an 
object  as  that  of  hindering  citizens  from  fighting  vTith 
citizens.”  This  seems  so  reasonable,  that  a  day  is 
named,  and  Labienus, — who  has  deserted  from  Ca3sar 
and  become  Pompeian, — comes  to  treat  on  one  side  of 
the  river,  and  Vatinius  on  the  other.  But, — so  Coesar 
tells  the  story  himself, — the  Ca3sarean  soldiers  throw 
their  weapons  at  their  old  general.  They  probably 
cannot  endure  the  voice  or  sight  of  one  whom  they  re- 


CjESAKS  ARMY  IN  ILLYRIA. 


151 


gard  as  a  renegade.  Labienus  escapes  under  the  pro¬ 
tection  of  those  who  are  with  him, — hut  he  is  full  of 
wrath  against  Caesar.  “After  this,”  says  he,  “let  us 
cease  to  speak  of  treaties,  for  there  can  he  no  peace  for 
us  till  Caesar’s  head  has  been  brought  to  us.”  But  the 
colloquies  over  the  little  stream  no  doubt  answered 
Caesar’s  purpose. 

Caesar  is  very  anxious  to  get  his  legions  over  from 
Italy,  and  even  scolds  Antony  for  not  bringing  them. 
There  is  a  story, — which  he  does  not  tell  himself, — • 
that  he  put  himself  into  a  small  boat,  intending  to 
cross  over  to  Brindisi  in  a  storm,  to  hurry  matters,  and 
that  he  encouraged  the  awe-struck  master  of  the  boat 
by  reminding  him  that  he  would  carry  “  Caesar  and  his 
fortunes.”  The  story  goes  on  to  say  that  the  sailors 
attempted  the  trip,  but  were  driven  back  by  the  tem¬ 
pest. 

At  last  there  springs  up  a  south-west  wind,  and  An¬ 
tony  ventures  with  his  flotilla, — although  the  war-ships 
of  Pompey  still  hold  the  sea,  and  guard  the  Illyrian 
coast.  But  Caesar’s  general  is  successful,  and  the  second 
half  of  the  Caesarean  army  is  carried  northward  by  fa¬ 
vouring  breezes  towards  the  shore  in  the  very  sight  of 
Pompey  and  his  soldiers  at  Dyrrachium.  Two  ships, 
however,  lag  behind  and  fall  into  the  hands  of  one 
Otacilius,  an  officer  belonging  to  Pompey.  The  two 
ships,  one  full  of  recruits  and  the  other  of  veterans, 
agree  to  surrender,  Otacilius  having  sworn  that  he  will 
not  hurt  the  men.  “  Here  you  may  see,”  says  Csesar, 
“  how  much  safety  to  men  there  is  in  presence  of  mind.” 
The  recruits  do  as  they  have  undertaken,  and  give  them- 


152 


THE  CIVIL  WAR.— THIRD  BOOK. 


selves  up  ; — whereupon  Otacilius,  altogether  disregard¬ 
ing  his  oath,  like  a  true  Eoman,  kills  every  man  of 
them.  But  the  veterans,  disregarding  their  word  also, 
and  knowing  no  doubt  to  a  fraction  the  worth  of  the 
word  of  Otacilius,  run  their  ship  ashore  in  the  night, 
and,  with  much  fighting,  get  safe  to  Antony.  Caesar  im¬ 
plies  that  the  recruits  even  would  have  known  better  had 
they  not  been  sea- sick ;  but  that  even  bilge-water  and 
bad  weather  combined  had  failed  to  touch  the  ancient 
courage  of  the  veteran  legionaries.  They  were  still 
good  men — “item  conflictati  et  tempestatis  et  sentinae 
vitiis.” 

We  are  then  told  how  Metellus  Scipio,  coming  out  of 
Syria  with  his  legions  into  Macedonia,  almost  succeeds 
in  robbing  the  temple  of  Diana  of  Ephesus  on  his 
way.  He  gets  together  a  body  of  senators,  who  are  tc 
give  evidence  that  he  counts  the  money  fairly  as  he 
takes  it  out  of  the  temple.  But  letters  come  from 
Pompey  just  as  he  is  in  the  act,  and  he  does  not  dare  to 
delay  his  journey  even  to  complete  so  pleasant  a  trans¬ 
action.  He  comes  to  meet  Pompey  and  to  share  his 
command  at  the  great  battle  that  must  soon  be  fought. 
We  hear,  too,  how  Caesar  sends  his  lieutenants  into 
Thessaly  and  iEtolia  and  Macedonia,  to  try  what 
friends  he  has  there,  to  take  cities,  and  to  get  food. 
He  is  now  in  a  land  which  has  seemed  specially  to  be¬ 
long  to  Pompey;  but  even  here  they  have  heard  of 
Caesar,  and  the  Greeks  are  simply  anxious  to  be  friends 
with  the  strongest  Poman  of  the  day.  They  have  to 
judge  which  will  win,  and  to  adhere  to  him.  Por  the 
poor  Greeks  there  is  much  difficulty  in  forming  a  judg* 


CAESAR  IX  ILLYRIA. 


153 


ment.  Presently  we  shall  see  the  way  in  which  Csesai 
gives  a  lesson  on  that  subject  to  the  citizens  of  Gomplii. 
In  the  mean  time  he  joins  his  own  forces  to  those  lately 
brought  by  Antony  out  of  Italy,  and  resolves  that  he 
will  force  Pompey  to  a  fight. 

We  may  divide  the  remainder  of  this  last  book  of 
the  second  Commentary  into  two  episodes, — the  first 
being  the  story  of  what  occurred  within  the  lines  at 
Petra,  and  the  second  the  account  of  the  crowning 
battle  of  Pliarsalia.  In  the  first  Pompey  was  the 
victor, — but  the  victory,  great  as  it  was,  has  won  from 
the  world  very  little  notice.  In  the  second,  as  all  the 
world  knows,  Caesar  was  triumphant  and  henceforward 
dominant.  And  yet  the  affair  at  Petra  should  have 
made  a  Pliarsalia  unnecessary,  and  indeed  impossible. 
Two  reasons  have  conspired  to  make  Pompey’s  com¬ 
plete  success  at  Petra  unimportant  in  the  world’s  esteem. 
This  Commentary  was  written  not  by  Pompey  but  by 
Caesar;  and  then,  unfortunately  for  Pompey,  Pliarsalia 
was  allowed  to  follow  Petra. 

It  is  not  very  easy  to  unravel  Cajsar’s  story  of  the 
doings  of  the  two  armies  at  Petra.  Kor,  were  this 
ever  so  easy,  would  our  limits  or  the  purport  of  this 
little  volume  allow  us  to  attempt  to  give  that  narrative 
in  full  to  our  readers.  Caesar  had  managed  to  join  the 
legions  which  he  had  himself  brought  from  Italy  with 
those  which  had  crossed  afterwards  with  Antony,  and 
was  now  anxious  for  a  battle.  His  men,  though  fewer  in 
number  than  they  who  followed  Pompey,  were  fit  for 
fighting,  and  knew  all  the  work  of  soldiering.  Pom¬ 
pey’s  men  were  for  the  most  part  beginners ; — but 


154 


T11E  CIVIL  WA  R. — THIRD  BOOK. 


they  were  learning,  and  every  week  added  to  their  ex¬ 
perience  was  a  week  in  Pompey’s  favour.  With  hope  ol 
forcing  a  battle,  Caesar  managed  to  get  his  army  between 
Dyrrachium,  in  which  were  kept  all  Pompey’s  stores 
and  wealth  of  war,  and  the  army  of  his  opponent,  so 
that  Pompey,  as  regarded  any  approach  by  land,  was  shut 
off  from  Dyrrachium.  But  the  sea  was  open  to  him. 
His  fleet  was  everywhere  on  the  coast,  while  Caesar 
had  not  a  ship  that  could  dare  to  show  its  bow  upon 
the  waters. 

There  was  a  steep  rocky  promontory  some  few  miles 
north  of  Dyrrachium,  from  whence  there  was  easy  access 
to  the  sea,  called  Petra,  or  the  rock.  At  this  point 
Pompey  could  touch  the  sea,  but  between  Petra  and 
Dyrrachium  Caesar  held  the  country.  Here,  on  this 
rock,  taking  in  for  the  use  of  his  army  a  certain  some¬ 
what  wide  amount  of  pasturage  at  the  foot  of  the  rock, 
Pompey  placed  his  army,  and  made  intrenchments  all 
round  from  sea  to  sea,  fortifying  himself,  as  all  Roman 
generals  knew  how  to  do,  with  a  bank  and  ditch  and 
twenty-four  turrets  and  earthworks  that  would  make 
the  place  absolutely  impregnable.  The  length  of  his 
lines  was  fifteen  Roman  miles, — more  than  thirteen 
.English  miles, — so  that  within  his  works  he  might 
have  as  much  space  as  possible  to  give  him  grass  for 
his  horses.  So  placed,  he  had  all  the  world  at  his 
back  to  feed  him.  Hot  only  could  he  get  at  that 
wealth  of  stores  which  he  had  amassed  at  Dyrrachium, 
and  which  were  safe  from  Caesar,  but  the  coasts  of 
Greece,  and  Asia,  and  Egypt  were  open  to  his  ships. 
Two  things  only  were  wanting  to  him, — sufficient  grass 


THE  LINES  OF  PETRA. 


155 


for  liis  horses,  and  water.  But  all  things  were  want¬ 
ing  to  Ccesar, — except  grass  and  water.  The  Illyrian 
country  at  his  hack  was  one  so  unproductive,  being 
rough  and  mountainous,  that  the  inhabitants  them¬ 
selves  were  in  ordinary  times  fed  upon  imported  corn. 
And  Pompey,  foreseeing  something  of  what  might  hap¬ 
pen,  had  taken  care  to  empty  the  storehouses  and  to 
leave  the  towns  behind  him  destitute  and  impoverished. 

Nevertheless  Caesar,  having  got  the  body  of  his 
enemy,  as  it  were,  imprisoned  at  Petra,  was  determined 
to  keep  his  prisoner  fast.  So  round  and  in  front  of 
Pompey’s  lines  he  also  made  other  lines,  from  sea  to 
sea.  He  began  by  erecting  turrets  and  placing  small 
detachments  on  the  little  hills  outside  Pompey’s  lines, 
so  as  to  prevent  his  enemy  from  getting  the  grass. 
Then  he  joined  these  towers  by  lines,  and  in  this  way 
surrounded  the  other  lines, — thinking  that  so  Pom¬ 
pey  would  not  be  able  to  send  out  his  horsemen  for 
forage ;  and  again,  that  the  horses  inside  at  Petra 
might  gradually  be  starved ;  and  again  “  that  the  repu¬ 
tation,” — “  auctoritatem,” — “  which  in  the  estimation  of 
foreign  nations  belonged  chiefly  to  Pompey  in  this  war, 
would  be  lessened  when  the  story  should  have  been 
told  over  the  world  that  Pompey  had  been  besieged  by 
Caesar,  and  did  not  dare  to  fight.” 

We  are,  perhaps,  too  much  disposed  to  think, — read¬ 
ing  our  history  somewhat  cursorily, — that  Caesar  at  this 
time  was  everybody,  and  that  Pompey  was  hardly 
worthy  to  be  his  foe.  Such  passages  in  the  Commen¬ 
tary  as  that  above  translated, — they  are  not  many,  but 
a  few  suffice, —  show  that  this  idea  is  erroneous.  Up 


15G 


THE  CIVIL  WAR. -THIRD  BOOK. 


to  this  pefiod  in  their  joint  courses  Pompey  had  been 
the  greater  man ;  Caesar  had  done  very  much,  hut 
Pompey  had  done  more — and  now  he  had  on  his  side 
almost  all  that  was  wealthy  and  respectable  in  Rome. 
He  led  the  Conservative  party,  and  was  still  confident 
that  he  had  only  to  hide  his  time,  and  that  Caesar 
must  fall  before  him.  Caesar  and  the  Caesareans  were 
to  him  as  the  spirits  of  the  Revolution  were  in  France 
to  Louis  XVI.,  to  Charles  X.,  and  to  Louis-Philippe, 
before  they  had  made  their  powers  credible  and  for¬ 
midable  ;  as  the  Reform  Bill  and  Catholic  Emancipa¬ 
tion  were  to  such  men  as  George  IV.  and  Lord  Eldon, 
while  yet  they  could  be  opposed  and  postponed.  It 
was  impossible  to  Pompey  that  the  sweepings  of  Rome, 
even  with  Caesar  and  Caesar’s  army  to  help  them, 
should  at  last  prevail  over  himself  and  over  the 
Roman  Senate.  “  He  was  said  at  that  time,”  we  are 
again  translating  Caesar’s  words,  “  to  have  declared  with 
boasts  among  his  own  people,  that  he  would  not  him¬ 
self  deny  that  as  a  general  he  should  be  considered  to 
be  worthless  if  Caesar’s  legions  should  now  extricate 
themselves  from  the  position  in  which  they  had  rashly 
entangled  themselves  without  very  great  loss  ” — 
“  maximo  detrimento  ”  —  loss  that  should  amount 
wellnigh  to  destruction.  And  he  was  all  but  right  in 
what  he  said. 

There  was  a  great  deal  of  fighting  for  the  plots  of 
grass  and  different  bits  of  vantage-ground, — fighting 
which  must  have  taken  place  almost  entirely  between 
the  two  lines.  But  Caesar  suffered  under  this  disad¬ 
vantage,  that  his  works,  being  much  the  longest. 


THE  LINES  OF  PETRA. 


157 


required  the  greatest  number  of  men  to  erect  them 
and  prolong  them  and  keep  them  in  order ;  whereas 
Pompey,  who  in  this  respect  had  the  least  to  do,  having 
the  inner  line,  was  provided  with  much  the  greater 
number  of  men  to  do  it.  Caesar's  men,  being  veter¬ 
ans,  had  always  the  advantage  in  the  actual  fighting  ; 
but  in  the  mean  time  Pompey’s  untried  soldiers  were 
obtaining  that  experience  which  was  so  much  needed 
by  them.  Nevertheless  Pompey  suffered  very  much. 
They  could  not  get  water  on  the  rock,  and  when  he 
attempted  to  sink  wells,  Caesar  so  perverted  the  water¬ 
courses  that  the  wells  gave  no  water.  Caesar  tells  us 
that  he  even  dammed  up  the  streams,  making  little 
lakes  to  hold  it,  so  that  it  should  not  trickle  down  in 
its  underground  courses  to  the  comfort  of  his  enemies ; 
but  we  should  have  thought  that  any  reservoirs  so 
made  must  soon  have  overflown  themselves,  and  have 
been  useless  for  the  intended  purpose.  In  the  mean 
time  Caesar’s  men  had  no  bread  but  what  was  made  of 
a  certain  wild  cabbage, — “  cliara,” — which  grew  there, 
which  they  kneaded  up  with  milk,  and  lived  upon  it 
cheerfully,  though  it  was  not  very  palatable.  To  shew 
the  Pompeians  the  sort  of  fare  with  which  real  veter¬ 
ans  could  be  content  to  break  their  fasts,  they  threw 
loaves  of  this  composition  across  the  lines.;  for  they 
were  close  together,  and  could  talk  to  each  other,  and 
the  Pompeians  did  not  hesitate  to  twit  their  enemies 
with  their  want  of  provisions.  But  the  Caesareans  had 
plenty  of  water, — and  plenty  of  meat;  and  they  assure 
Caesar  that  they  would  rather  eat  the  bark  off  the  trees 
than  allow  the  Pompeians  to  escape  them. 


158 


THE  CIVIL  WAR.- THIRD  ROOK . 


But  there  was  always  this  for  Caesar  to  fear, — that 
Pompey  should  land  a  detachment  behind  his  lines 
and  attack  him  at  the  hack.  To  hinder  this  Caesar 
made  another  intrenchment,  with  ditch  and  hank, 
running  at  right  angles  from  the  shore,  and  was  in¬ 
tending  to  join  this  to  his  main  work  by  a  transverse 
line  of  fortifications  running  along  that  short  portion 
of  the  coast  which  lay  between  his  first  lines  and  the 
second,  when  there  came  upon  him  the  disaster  which 
nearly  destroyed  him.  While  he  was  digging  his 
trenches  and  building  his  turrets  the  fighting  was  so 
frequent  that,  as  Caesar  tells  us,  on  one  day  there  were 
six  battles.  Pompey  lost  two  thousand  legionaries, 
while  Caesar  lost  no  more  than  twenty;  hut  every 
Caesarean  engaged  in  a  certain  turret  was  wounded,  and 
four  officers  lost  their  eyes.  Caesar  estimates  that 
thirty  thousand  arrows  were  thrown  upon  the  men 
defending  this  tower,  and  tells  us  of  one  Scaeva,  an 
officer,  who  had  two  hundred  and  thirty  holes  made  by 
these  arrows  in  his  own  shield.*  We  can  only  sur- 

*  Dean  Merivale  in  his  account  of  this  affair  reduces  the 
number  of  holes  in  Scaeva’ s  shield  to  one  hundred  and  twenty, 
— on  the  joint  authority,  no  doubt,  of  Floras  and  Valerius 
Maximus  ;  but  Floras  lived  20  *  and  Val.  Max.  300  years  after 
Caesar.  Suetonius  allows  the  full  number  of  holes,  but  implies 
that  120  were  received  while  the  warrior  was  fighting  in  one 
place,  and  110  while  fighting  in  another.  Lucan  sings  the  story 
of  Scseva  at  great  length,  but  does  not  give  the  number  of 
wounds  in  the  shield.  He  seems  to  say  that  Scseva  was  killed  on 
this  occasion,  but  is  not  quite  clear  on  the  point.  That  Scaeva 
had  one  eye  knocked  out  is  certain.  Lucan  does  indeed  tell 
us,  in  the  very  last  lines  of  his  poem,  that  in  Egypt  Caesar  once 
again  saw  his  beloved  centurion  ; — but  at  the  moment  described 


THE  LINES  OF  PETRA . 


159 


mise  that  it  must  have  "been  a  very  big  shield,  and  that 
there  must  have  been  much  trouble  in  counting  the 
holes.  Caesar,  however,  was  so  much  pleased  that  ho 
gave  Scaeva  a  large  sum  of  money, — something  over 
£500,  and,  allowing  him  to  skip  over  six  intermediate 
ranks,  made  him  at  once  first  centurion — or  Primipilus 
of  the  legion.  We  remember  no  other  record  of  such 
quick  promotion — in  prose.  There  is,  indeed,  the  well- 
known  case  of  a  common  sailor  who  did  a  gallant  ac¬ 
tion  and  was  made  first-lieutenant  on  the  spot ;  but 
that  is  told  in  verse,  and  the  common  sailor  was  a  lady. 

Two  perfidious  Gauls  to  whom  Caesar  had  been  very 
kind,  but  whom  he  had  been  obliged  to  check  on  ac¬ 
count  of  certain  gross  peculations  of  which  they  had 
been  guilty,  though,  as  he  tells  us,  he  had  not  time  to 
punish  them,  went  over  to  Pompey,  and  told  Pompey 
all  the  secrets  of  Caesar’s  ditches,  and  forts,  and  mounds, 
— finished  and  unfinished.  Before  that,  Caesar  assures 
us,  not  a  single  man  of  his  had  gone  over  to  the  ene¬ 
my,  though  many  of  the  enemy  had  come  to  him.  But 
those  perfidious  Gauls  did  a  world  of  mischief.  Pompey, 
hearing  how  far  Caesar  was  from  having  his  works  along 
the  sea-shore  finished,  got  together  a  huge  fleet  of  boats, 
and  succeeded  at  night  in  throwing  a  large  body  of  his 
men  ashore  between  Caesar’s  two  lines,  thus  dividing 
Caesar’s  forces,  and  coming  upon  them  in  their  weakest 

even  Cassarwas  dismayed,  and  the  commentators  doubt  whether 
it  was  not  Scaeva’s  ghost  that  Caesar  then  saw.  Valerius  Maxi¬ 
mus  is  sure  that  Scaeva  was  killed  when  he  got  the  wounds ; — but, 
if  so,  how  could  he  have  been  rewarded  and  promoted  ?  The 
matter  has  been  very  much  disputed ;  but  here  it  has  been 
thought  best  to  adhere  to  Caesar. 


ICO 


THE  CIVIL  WaR.— THIRD  BOOK. 


point.  Cmsar  admits  that  there  was  a  panic  in  hia 
lines,  and  that  the  slaughter  of  his  men  was  very  great. 
It  seems  that  the  very  size  of  his  own  works  produced 
the  ruin  which  hcfel  them,  for  the  different  parts  of 
them  were  divided  one  from  another,  so  that  the  men 
in  one  position  could  not  succour  those  in  another.  The 
affair  ended  in  the  total  rout  of  the  Caesarean  army. 
Caesar  actually  fled,  and  had  Pompey  followed  him  we 
must  suppose  that  then  there  would  have  been  an 
end  of  Caesar.  He  acknowledges  that  in  the  two 
battles  fought  on  that  day  he  lost  9 GO  legionaries,  32 
officers,  and  32  standards. 

And  then  Caesar  tells  us  a  story  of  Labienus,  who  had 
been  his  most  trusted  lieutenant  in  the  Gallic  wars,  but 
who  had  now  gone  over  to  Pompey,  not  choosing  to 
fight  against  the  Eepublic.  Labienus  demanded  of 
Pompey  the  Caesarean  captives,  and  caused  them  all  to 
be  slaughtered,  asking  them  with  scorn  whether  veter¬ 
ans  such  as  they  were  accustomed  to  run  away.  Caesar 
is  very  angry  with  Labienus  ;  but  Labienus  might  have 
defended  himself  by  saying  that  the  slaughter  of  pri¬ 
soners  of  war  was  a  custom  he  had  learned  in  Gaul, 
As  for  those  words  of  scorn,  Caesar  could  hardly  have 
heard  them  with  his  own  ears,  and  we  can  understand 
that  he  should  take  delight  in  saying  a  hard  thing  of 
Labienus. 

Pompey  was  at  once  proclaimed  Imperator.  And 
Pompey  used  the  name,  though  the  victory  had, 
alas  !  been  gained  over  his  fellow-countrymen.  “  So 
great  was  the  effect  of  all  this  on  the  spirits  and  confi¬ 
dence  of  the  Pompeians,  that  they  thought  no  more  of 
the  carrying  on  of  the  war,  but  only  of  the  victoiy 


THE  LINES  OF  PETRA. 


161 


they  had  gained.”  And  then  Caesar  throws  scorn 
upon  the  Pompeians,  making  his  own  apology  in  the 
same  words.  ‘‘They  did  not  care  to  remember  that 
the  small  number  of  our  soldiers  was  the  cause  of  their 
triumph,  or  that  the  unevenness  of  the  ground  and  nar¬ 
rowness  of  the  defiles  had  aught  to  do  with  it ;  or 
the  occupation  of  our  lines,  and  the  panic  of  our  men 
between  their  double  fortifications  ;  or  our  army  cut 
into  two  parts,  so  that  one  part  could  not  help  the 
other.  Nor  did  they  add  to  this  the  fact  that  our  men, 
pressed  as  they  were,  could  not  engage  themselves  in 
a  fair  conflict,  and  that  they  indeed  suffered  more  from 
their  own  numbers,  and  from  the  narrowness  of  the 
ravines,  than  from  the  enemy.  Nor  were  the  ordinary 
chances  of  war  brought  to  mind, — how  small  matters, 
such  as  some  unfounded  suspicion,  a  sudden  panic,  a 
remembered  superstition,  may  create  great  misfortune  ; 
nor  how  often  the  fault  of  a  general,  or  the  mistake  of 
an  officer,  may  bring  injury  upon  an  army.  But  they 
spread  abroad  the  report  of  the  victory  of  that  day 
throughout  all  the  world,  sending  forth  letters  and 
tales  as  though  they  had  conquered  solely  by  their  own 
valour,  nor  was  it  possible  that  there  should  after  this 
be  a  reverse  of  their  circumstances.”  Such  was  the 
affair  of  Petra,  by  which  the  relative  position  in  the 
world-history  of  Caesar  and  Pompey  was  very  nearly 
made  the  reverse  of  what  it  is. 

Caesar  now  acknowledges  that  he  is  driven  to  change 
the  whole  plan  of  his  campaign.  He  addresses  a 
speech  to  his  men,  and  explains  to  them  that  this 
defeat,  like  that  at  Gergovia,  may  lead  to  their  future 

A.  C.  vol.  iv.  L 


162 


THE  CIVIL  WAR.— THIRD  BOOK. 


success.  The  victory  at  Alesia  had  sprung  from  the 
defeat  of  Gergovia,  because  the  Gauls  had  been  in¬ 
duced  to  fight ;  and  from  the  reverses  endured  within 
the  lines  of  Petra  might  come  the  same  fortune; — for 
surely  now  the  army  of  Pompey  would  not  fear  a 
battle.  Some  few  officeis  he  punishes  and  degrades. 
His  own  words  respecting  his  army  after  their  defeat 
are  very  touching.  “  So  great  a  grief  had  come  from 
this  disaster  upon  the  whole  army,  and  so  strong  a 
desire  of  repairing  its  disgrace,  that  no  one  now  desired 
the  place  of  tribune  or  centurion  in  his  legion ;  and 
all,  by  way  of  self-imposed  punishment,  subjected 
themselves  to  increased  toil ;  and  every  man  burned 
with  a  desire  to  fight.  Some  from  the  higher  ranks 
were  so  stirred  by  Caesar’s  speech,  that  they  thought 
that  they  should  stand  their  ground  where  they  were, 
and  hght  where  they  stood.”  But  Caesar  was  too 
good  a  general  for  that.  He  moves  on  towards  the 
south-east,  and  in  retreating  gets  the  better  of  Pompey, 
who  follows  him  with  only  half  a  heart.  After  a 
short  while  Pompey  gives  up  the  pursuit.  His  father- 
in-law,  Scipio,  has  brought  a  great  army  from  the 
east,  and  is  in  Thessaly.  As  we  read  this  we  cannot 
fail  to  remember  how  short  a  time  since  it  was  that 
Caesar  himself  was  Pompey’s  father-in-law,  and  that 
Pompey  was  Caesar’s  friend  because,  with  too  uxorious 
a  love,  he  clung  to  Julia,  his  young  wife.  Pompey 
now  goes  eastward  to  unite  his  army  to  that  of  Scipio  . 
and  Caesar,  making  his  way  also  into  Thessaly  by  a 
more  southern  route,  joins  certain  forces  under  his 
lieutenant  Calvinus,  who  had  been  watching  Scipio, 


PII A  RSALIA. 


163 


* 


ami  who  barely  escaped  falling  into  Pompey’s  hands 
before  he  could,  reach  Caesar.  But  wherever  P  jrtune 
or  Chance  could  interfere,  the  Gods  were  always  kind 
to  Caesar. 

Then  Caesar  tells  us  of  his  treatment  of  two  towns 
in  Thessaly,  Gomphi  and  Metropolis.  Unluckily  for 
the  poor  Gomphians,  Caesar  reaches  Gomphi  first. 
Uow  the  fame  of  Pompey’s  victory  at  Petra  had  been 
spread  abroad;  and  the  Gomphians,  who, — to  give  them 
their  due, — would  have  been  just  as  willing  to  favour 
Caesar  as  Pompey,  and  who  only  wanted  to  be  on  the 
winning  aide  that  they  might  hold  their  little  own  in 
safety,  believed  that  things  were  going  badly  with 
Caesar.  They  therefore  shut  their  gates  against  Caesar, 
and  sent  off  messengers  to  Pompey.  They  can  hold 
their  town  against  Caesar  for  a  little  while,  but  Pompey 
must  come  quickly  to  their  aid.  Pompey  comes  by 
no  means  quick  enough,  and  the  Gomphians’  capacity 
to  hold. their  own  is  very  short-lived.  At  about  three 
o’clock  in  the  afternoon  Caesar  begins  to  besiege  the 
town,  and  before  sunset  he  has  taken  it,  and  given  it 
to  be  sacked  by  his  soldiers.  The  men  of  Metropolis 
were  also  going  to  shut  their  gates,  but  luckily  they 
hear  just  in  time  what  had  happened  at  Gomphi, — and 
open  them  instead.  Whereupon  Caesar  showers  pro¬ 
tection  upon  Metropolis  ;  and  all  the  other  towns  of 
Thessaly,  hearing  what  had  been  done,  learn  what 
Caesar’s  favour  means. 

Pompey,  having  joined  his  army  to  that  of  Scipio, 
shares  all  his  honours  with  his  father-in-law.  When 
we  hear  this  we  know  that  Pompey’s  position  was  not 


1G4 


THE  CIVIL  WAR.— THIRD  BOOK. 


comfortable,  and  that  he  was  under  constraint.  Ho 
was  a  man  who  would  share  his  honour  with  no  one 
unless  driven  to  do  so.  And  indeed  his  command 
at  present  was  not  a  pleasant  one.  It  was  much  for 
a  Roman  commander  to  have  with  him  the  Roman 
Senate, — hut  the  senators  so  placed  would  he  apt  to  he 
less  obedient  than  trained  soldiers.  They  even  accuse 
him  of  keeping  them  in  Thessaly  because  he  likes  to 
lord  it  over  such  followers.  But  they  were,  neverthe¬ 
less,  all  certain  that  Caesar  was  about  to  be  destroyed ; 
and,  even  in  Pompey’s  camp,  they  quarrel  over  the 
rewards  of  victory  which  they  think  that  they  will 
enjoy  at  Rome  when  their  oligarchy  shall  have  been 
re-established  by  Pompey’s  arms. 

Before  the  great  day  arrives  Labienus  again  ap¬ 
pears  on  the  scene  ;  and  Caesar  puts*  into  his  mouth  a 
speech  which  he  of  course  intends  us  to  compare  with 
the  result  of  the  coming  battle.  “Do  not  think,  0 
Pompey,  that  this  is  the  army  which  conquered  Gaul 
and  Germany,” — where  Labienus  himself  was  second 
in  command  under  Caesar.  “  I  was  present  at  all 
those  battles,  and  speak  of  a  thing  which  I  know.  A 
very  small  part  of  that  army  remains.  Many  have 
perished, — as  a  matter  of  course  in  so  many  battles. 
The  autumn  pestilence  killed  many  in  Italy.  Many 
have  gone  home.  Many  have  been  left  on  the  other 
shore.  Have  you  not  heard  from  our  own  friends  who 
remained  behind  sick,  that  these  cohorts  of  Ctesar’s 
were  made  up  at  Brindisi  ?  ” — made  up  but  the  other 
day,  Labienus  implies.  “This  army,  indeed,  has  been 
renewed  from  levies  in  the  two  Gauls  ;  but  all  that  it 


PHARSALIA. 


165 


had  of  strength  perished  in  those  two  battles  at  Dyr- 
rachium;” — in  the  contests,  that  is,  within  the  lines  of 
Petra.  Upon  this  Labienus  swears  that  be  will  not 
sleep  under  canvas  again  until  he  sleeps  as  victor  over 
Caesar ;  and  Pompey  swears  the  same,  and  everybody 
swears.  Then  they  all  go  away  full  of  the  coming 
victory.  We  daresay  there  was  a  great  deal  of  false 
confidence ;  but  as  for  the  words  which  Caesar  puts 
into  the  mouth  of  Labienus,  Ave  know  well  how  much 
cause  Caesar  had  to  dislike  Labienus,  and  we  doubt 
whether  they  Avere  ever  spoken. 

At  length  the  battle-field  is  chosen, — near  the  toAvn 
of  Pliarsalus,  on  the  banks  of  the  river  Enipeus  in 
Thessaly.  The  battle  has  acquired  world-wide  fame  as 
that  of  Pharsalia,  A\rhich  we  have  been  taught  to  regard  as 
the  name  of  the  plain  on  which  it  was  fought.  Neither 
of  these  names  occur  in  the  Commentary,  nor  does 
that  of  the  river ;  and  the  actual  spot  on  Avhich  the 
great  contest  took  place  seems  to  be  a  matter  of  doubt 
even  hoav.  The  ground  is  Turkish  soil, — near  to  the 
mountains  which  separate  modern  Greece  from  Turkey, 
and  is  not  Avell  adapted  for  the  researches  of  historical 
travellers.  Caesar  had  been  keeping  his  men  on  the 
march  close  to  Pompey,  till  Pompey  found  that  he 
could  no  longer  abstain  from  fighting.  Then  came 
Labienus  Avith  his  vaunts,  and  his  oath,- — and  at  length 
the  day  and  the  field  were  chosen.  Caesar  at  any  rate 
Avas  ready.  At  this  time  Caesar  was  fifty- tAATo  years 
old,  and  Pompey  Avas  five  years  his  elder. 

Caesar  tells  us  that  Pompey  had  110  cohorts,  or  eleAren 
legions.  Had  the  legions  been  full,  Pompey’s  army 


166 


THE  CIVIL  WAR.— THIRD  ROOK. 


would  have  contained  66,000  legionaries  ;  hut  Caesaf 
states  their  number  at  45,000,  or  something  over  two- 
thirds  of  the  full  number.  He  does  not  forget  to  tell 
us  once  again  that  among  these  eleven  were  the  two 
legions  which  he  had  given  up  in  obedience  to  the  de¬ 
mand  of  the  Senate.  Pompey  himself,  with  these  two 
very  legions,  placed  himself  on  the  left  away  from  the 
river  ;  and  there  also  were  all  his  auxiliaries, — not 
counted  with  the  legionaries, — slingers,  archers,  and 
cavalry.  Scipio  commanded  in  the  centre  with  the 
legions  he  had  brought  out  of  Syria.  So  Caesar  tells 
us.  We  learn  from  other  sources  that  Lentulus  com¬ 
manded  Pompey’ s  right  wing,  lying  on  the  river — and 
Homitius,  whom  we  remember  as  trying  to  hold  Mar¬ 
seilles  against  young  Brutus  and  Trebonius,  the  left. 
Caesar  had  80  cohorts,  or  eight  legions,  which  should 
have  numbered  48,000  men  had  his  legions  been  full ; 
— but,  as  he  tells  us,  he  led  but  22,000  legionaries,  so 
that  his  ranks  were  deficient  by  more  than  a  half. 
As  was  his  custom,  he  had  his  tenth  legion  to  the 
right,  away  from  the  river.  The  ninth,  terribly 
thinned  by  what  had  befallen  it  within  the  lines  at 
Petra,  joined  to  the  eleventh, lay  next  the  river,  form¬ 
ing  part  of  Caesar’s  left  wing.  Antony  commanded 
the  left  wing,  Domitius  Calvinus,  whom  Caesar  some¬ 
times  calls  by  one  name  and  sometimes  by  the  other, 
the  centre, — and  Sulla  the  right.  Caesar  placed  himself 
to  the  right,  with  his  tenth  legion,  opposite  to  Pompey. 
As  far  as  we  can  learn,  there  was  but  little  in  the 
nature  of  the  ground  to  aid  either  of  them; — and  so 
the  fight  began. 

There  is  not  much  complication,  and  perhaps  no 


PII A  RSALIA. 


167 


great  interest,  in  the  account  of  the  actual  bactie  as  it 
is  given  by  Caesar.  Caesar  makes  a  speech  to  his  army, 
which  was,  as  we  have  already  learned,  and  as  he  tells 
us  now,  the  accustomed  thing  to  do.  No  falser  speech 
was  ever  made  by  man,  if  he  spoke  the  words  which 
he  himself  reports.  He  first  of  all  reminds  them  how 
they  themselves  are  witnesses  that  he  has  done  his 
best  to  insure  peace; — and  then  he  calls  to  their  memory 
certain  mock  treaties  as  to  peace,  in  which,  when  seek¬ 
ing  delay,  he  had  pretended,  to  engage  himself  and 
his  enemy.  He  had  never  wasted,  he  told  them,  the 
blood  of  his  soldiers,  nor  did  he  desire  to  deprive 
the  Republic  of  either  army — “  alterutro  exercitu” — of 
Pompey’s  army  or  of  his  own.  They  were  both 
Roman,  and  far  be  it  from  him  to  destroy  aught 
belonging  to  the  Republic.  We  must  acknowledge 
that  Caesar  was  always  ckar}r  of  Roman  life  and  Roman 
blood.  He  would  spare  it  when  it  could  be  spared; 
but  he  could  spill  it  like  water  when  the  spilling  of 
it  was  necessary  to  his  end.  He  was  very  politic ;  but 
as  for  tenderness, — neither  he  nor  any  Roman  knew 
what  it  was. 

Then  there  is  a  story  of  one  Crastinus,  who  declares 
that  whether  dead  or  alive  lie  will  please  Caesar.  He 
throws  the  first  weapon  against  the  enemy  and  does 
please  Caesar.  But  he  has  to  please  by  his  death,  for 
he  is  killed  in  his  effort. 

Pompey  orders  that  his  first  rank  shall  not  leave  its 
order  to  advance,  but  shall  receive  the  shock  of  Caesar’s 
attack.  Caesar  points  out  to  us  that  he  is  wrong  in 
this,  because  the  very  excitement  of  a  first  attack  gives 
increased  energy  and  strength  to  the  men.  Caesar’s 


168 


THE  CIVIL  WAR.— THIRD  BOOK. 


»  legionaries  are  told  to  attack,  and  they  rush  over  the 
space  intervening  between  the  first  ranks  to  do  so. 
But  they  are  so  well  trained  that  they  pause  and 
catch  their  breath  before  they  throw  their  weapons. 
Then  they  throw  their  piles  and  draw  their  swords, 
and  the  ranks  of  the  two  armies  are  close  pitted  against 
each  other. 

But  Pompey  had  thought  that  he  could  win  the 
battle,  almost  without  calling  on  his  legionaries  for 
any  exertion,  by  the  simple  strategic  movement  of  his 
numerous  cavalry  and  auxiliaries.  He  outnumbered 
Caesar  altogether,  hut  in  these  arms  he  could  overwhelm 
him  with  a  cloud  of  horsemen  and  of  archers.  But 
Caesar  also  had  known  of  these  clouds.  He  fought 
now  as  always  with  a  triple  rank  of  legionaries, — hut 
behind  his  third  rank, — or  rather  somewhat  to  their 
right  shoulder, — he  had  drawn  up  a  choice  body  of  men 
picked  from  his  third  line,  —  a  fourth  line  as  it  were, 
— whose  business  it  was  to  stand  against  Pompey’s 
clouds  when  the  attempt  should  be  made  by  these 
clouds  upon  their  right  flank.  Caesar’s  small  body  of 
cavalry  did  give  way  before  the  Pompeian  clouds,  and 
the  horsemen  and  the  archers  and  the  slingers  swept 
round  upon  Caesar’s  flank.  But  they  swept  round 
upon  destruction.  Caesar  gave  the  word  to  that  fourth 
line  of  picked  men.  “Illi — they,”  says  Caesar,  “ran 
forward  with  the  greatest  rapidity,  and  with  their 
standards  in  advance  attacked  the  cavalry  of  Pompey 
with  such  violence  that  none  of  them  could  stand  their 
ground ; — so  that  all  not  only  were  forced  from  the 
ground,  but  being  at  once  driven  in  panic,  they  sought 
the  shelter  of  the  highest  mountains  near  them.  And 


PHARSAL1A. 


1G9 


when  they  were  thus  removed,  all  the  archers  and  the 
slingers,  desolate  and  unarmed,  without  any  one  to  take 
care  of  them,  were  killed  in  heaps.’’  Such  is  Caesar’s 
account  of  Pompey’s  great  attack  of  cavalry  which 
was  to  win  the  battle  without  giving  trouble  to  the 
legions. 

Caesar  acknowledges  that  Pompey’s  legionaries  drew 
their  swords  bravely  and  began  their  share  of  the  fight¬ 
ing  well.  Then  at  once  he  tells  us  of  the  failure  on 
the  part  of  the  cavalry  and  of  the  slaughter  of  the 
poor  auxiliary  slingers,  and  in  the  very  next  sentence 
gives  us  to  understand  that  the  battle  was  won. 
Though  Pompey’s  legions  were  so  much  more  numer¬ 
ous  than  those  of  Caesar,  wre  are  told  that  Caesar’s  third 
line  attacked  the  Pompeian  legionaries  when  they  were 
“defessi” — worn  out.  The  few  cohorts  of  picked 
men  who  in  such  marvellous  manner  had  dispersed 
Pompey’s  clouds,  following  on  their  success,  turned  the 
flank  of  Pompey’s  legions  and  carried  the  day.  That 
it  was  all  as  Caesar  says  there  can  be  little  doubt. 
That  he  won  the  battle  there  can,  vre  presume,  be 
no  doubt.  Pompey  at  once  flew  to  his  camp  and 
endeavoured  to  defend  it.  Put  such  defence  was 
impossible,  and  Pompey  w'as  driven  to  seek  succour 
in  flight.  He  found  a  horse  and  a  few  companions, 
and  did  not  stop  till  he  was  on  the  sea-shore.  Then 
he  got  on  board  a  provision-vessel,  and  was  heard  to 
complain  that  he  had  been  betrayed  by  those  very  men 
from  whose  hands  he  had  expected  victory. 

"We  are  told  with  much  picturesque  effect  how 
Caesar’s  men,  hungry,  accustomed  to  endurance,  patient 
in  all  their  want,  found  Pompey’s  camp  prepared  foi 


170 


THE  CIVIL  WAR.— THIRD  BOOK. 


4  victory,  and  decked  in  luxurious  preparation  for  the 
senatorial  victors.  Couclies  were  strewn,  and  plate 
was  put  out,  and  tables  prepared,  and  the  tents  of  these 
happy  ones  were  adorned  with  fresh  ivy.  The  sena¬ 
torial  happy  ones  have  but  a  bad  time  of  it,  either 
perishing  in  their  flight,  or  escaping  into  the  desert 
solitudes  of  the  mountains.  Caesar  follows  up  his  con¬ 
quest,  and  on  the  day  after  the  battle  compels  the  great 
body  of  the  fugitives  to  surrender  at  discretion.  He 
surrounds  them  on  the  top  of  a  hill  and  shuts  them 
out  from  water,  and  they  do  surrender  at  discretion. 
With  stretched-out  hands,  prone  upon  the  earth,  these 
late  conquerors,  the  cream  of  the  Roman  power,  who 
had  so  lately  sworn  to  conquer  ere  they  slept,  weeping 
beg  for  mercy.  Caesar,  having  said  a  few  words  to 
them  of  his  clemency,  gave  them  their  lives.  He  re¬ 
commends  them  to  the  care  of  his  own  men,  and  desires 
that  they  may  neither  be  slaughtered  nor  robbed. 

Caesar  says  he  lost  only  200  soldiers  in  that  battle 
- — and  among  them  30  officers,  all  brave  men.  That 
gallant  Crastinus  was  among  the  30.  Of  Pompey’s 
army  15,000  had  been  killed,  and  24,000  had  surren¬ 
dered  !  180  standards  and  9  eagles  were  taken  and 

brought  to  Caesar.  The  numbers  seem  to  us  to  be 
almost  incredible,  whether  we  look  at  those  given  to 
us  in  regard  to  the  conqueror  or  the  conquered.  Caesar’s 
account,  however,  of  that  day’s  work  has  hitherto  been 
taken  as  authoritative,  and  it  is  too  late  now  to  ques¬ 
tion  it.  After  this  fashion  was  the  battle  of  Pharsalia 
won,  and  the  so-called  Roman  Republic  brought  to  an 
end. 

Rut  Caesar  by  no  means  thought  that  his  work  waa 


THE  FLIGHT  OF  POMPEY. 


171 


done ; — nor  indeed  was  it  nearly  done.  It  was  now 
clearly  his  first  duty  to  pursue  Pompey, — whom, 
should  he  escape,  the  outside  provinces  and  distant 
allies  of  the  Republic  would  soon  supply  with  another 
army.  “  Caesar  thought  that  Pompey  was  to  be  pur¬ 
sued  to  the  neglecting  of  all  other  things.”  In  the 
mean  time  Pompey,  who  seems  to  have  been  panic- 
struck  by  his  misfortune,  fled  with  a  few  friends  down 
the  iEgean  Sea,  picked  his  young  wife  up  at  an  island 
as  he  went,  and  made  his  way  to  Egypt.  The  story  of 
his  murder  by  those  who  had  the  young  King  of  Egypt 
in  their  keeping  is  well  known  and  need  not  detain  us. 
Caesar  tells  it  very  shortly.  Pompey  sends  to  young 
Ptolemy  for  succour  and  assistance,  trusting  to  past 
friendship  between  himself  and  the  young  king’s  father. 
Ptolemy  is  in  the  hands  of  eunuchs,  adventurers,  and 
cut-throat  soldiers,  and  has  no  voice  of  his  own  in  the 
matter.  But  these  ruffians  think  it  well  to  have  Pom¬ 
pey  out  of  the  way,  and  therefore  they  murder  him. 
Achillas,  a  royal  satrap,  and  Septimius,  a  Roman  sol¬ 
dier,  go  out  to  Pompey’s  vessel,  as  messengers  from  the 
king,  and  induce  him  to  come  down  into  their  boat. 
Then,  in  the  very  sight  of  his  wife,  he  is  slaughtered, 
and  his  head  is  carried  away  as  proof  of  the  deed. 
Such  was  the  end  of  Pompey,  for  whom  no  fortune 
had  seemed  to  be  too  great,  till  Caesar  came  upon  the 
scene.  "We  are  told  by  the  Roman  poet,  Lucan,  who 
took  the  battle  of  Pharsalia  as  his  difficult  theme,  that 
Caesar  could  bear  no  superior,  and  Pompey  no  equal. 
The  poet  probably  wished  to  make  the  latter  the  more 
magnanimous  by  the  comparison.  To  ns,  as  we  ex¬ 
amine  the  character  of  the  two  generals,  Caesar  seema 


172 


THE  CIVIL  WAR. -THIRD  ROOK. 


at  least  as  jealous  of  power  as  his  sou-in-law,  and  cer* 
tainly  was  the  more  successful  of  the  two  in  extruding 
all  others  from  a  share  in  the  power  which  he  coveted. 
Pompey  in  the  triumvirate  admitted  his  junior  to 
more,  as  ho  must  have  felt  it,  than  equal-  power : 
Caesar  in  the  triumvirate  simply  made  a  stepping-stone 
of  the  great  man  who  was  his  elder.  Pompey  at 
Thessaly  was  forced  to  divide  at  least  the  name  of  his 
power  with  Scipio,  his  last  father-in-law  :  hut  Caesar 
never  gave  a  shred  of  his  mantle  to  he  worn  by  another 
soldier. 

In  speaking,  however,  of  the  character  of  Pompey, 
and  in  comparing  it  with  that  of  his  greater  rival,  it 
may  probably  be  said  of  him  that  in  all  his  contests, 
both  military  and  political,  he  was  governed  by  a  love 
of  old  Rome,  and  of  the  Republic  as  the  greatest 
national  institution  which  the  world  had  ever  known, 
and  by  a  feeling  which  we  call  patriotism,  and  of 
which  Caesar  was, — perhaps,  we  may  say,  too  great  to  be 
capable.  Pompey  desired  to  lead,  but  to  lead  the  be¬ 
loved  Republic.  Caesar,  caring  nothing  for  the  things  of 
old,  with  no  reverence  for  the  past,  utterly  destitute  of 
that  tenderness  for  our  former  footsteps  which  makes 
so  many  of  us  cling  with  passionate  fondness  to  con¬ 
victed  errors,  desired  to  create  out  of  the  dust  of  the 
Republic, — which  fate  and  his  genius  allowed  him  to 
recast  as  he  would, — something  which  should  be  better 
and  truer  than  the  Republic. 

The  last  seven  chapters  of  the  third  book  of  this 
Commentary  form  a  commencement  of  the  record  of 
the  Alexandrine  war,  —  Avliich,  beyond  those  seven 
chapters,  Caesar  himself  did  not  write.  That  he 


CAESAR  FOLLOWS  POMPEY  TO  EGYPT.  173 


should  have  written  any  Commentary  amidst  the 
necessary  toils  of  war,  and  the  perhaps  more  pressing 
emergencies  of  his  political  condition,  is  one  of  the 
greatest  marvels  of  human  power.  He  tells  us  now, 
that  having  delayed  hut  a  few  days  in  Asia,  he  followed 
Pompey  first  to  Cyprus  and  then  to  Egypt,  taking  with 
him  as  his  entire  army  three  thousand  two  hundred 
men.  “  The  rest,  worn  out  with  wounds,  and  battles, 
and  toil,  and  the  greatness  of  the  journey,  could  not 
follow  him.”  But  he  directed  that  legions  should  bo 
made  up  for  him  from  the  remnants  of  Pompey’s  broken 
army,  and,  with  a  godlike  trust  in  the  obedience  of  ab¬ 
sent  vassals,  he  went  on  to  Egypt.  He  tells  us  that 
he  was  kept  in  Alexandria  by  Etesian  winds.  But  we 
know  also  that  Cleopatra  came  to  him  at  Alexandria, 
requiring  his  services  in  her  contest  for  the  crown  of 
Egypt ;  and  knowing  at  what  price  she  bought  them, 
we  doubt  the  persistent  malignity  of  the  Etesian  winds. 
Had  Cleopatra  been  a  swarthy  Nubian,  as  some  have 
portrayed  her,  Caesar,  we  think,  would  have  left  Alexr 
andria  though  the  Etesian  winds  had  blown  in  his  very 
teeth.  All  winds  filled  Caesar’s  sails.  Caesar  gets  pos¬ 
session  of  Cleopatra’s  brother  Ptolemy,  who,  in  accord¬ 
ance  with  their  father’s  will,  was  to  have,  reigned  in 
conjunction  with  his  sister,  and  the  Alexandrians 
rise  against  him  in  great  force.  He  slays  Photinus, 
the  servant  of  King  Ptolemy,  has  his  own  ambassador 
slain,  and  burns  the  royal  fleet  of  Egypt, — burning 
with  it,  unfortunately,  the  greater  part  of  the  royal 
library.  “  These  things  were  the  beginning  of  the 
Alexandrine  war.”  These  are  the  last  words  of  Caesar’s 
last  Commentary. 


CHAPTER  XII. 


CONCLUSION. 

Having  concluded  liis  ten  short  chapters  descriptive 
of  the  ten  hooks  of  the  Commentaries  written  by  Cae¬ 
sar  himself,  the  author  of  this  little  volume  has  finished 
his  intended  task, — and  as  he  is  specially  anxious  not 
to  he  thought  to  have  made  an  attempt  at  writing  his¬ 
tory,  he  would  not  add  any  concluding  words,  were  it 
not  that  three  other  Commentaries  of  Caesar’s  three 
other  wars  were  added  to  Caesar’s  Commentaries  by 
other  writers.  There  is  the  Commentary  on  the  Alex¬ 
andrine  war, — written  probably  by  ITirtius,  the  authoi 
of  the  last  book  of  the  Gallic  war ;  and  two  Commen¬ 
taries  on  the  African  war  and  the  Spanish  war, — writ¬ 
ten,  as  the  critics  seem  to  think,  by  one  Oppius,  a 
friend  whom  Caesar  loved  and  trusted.  The  Alexan¬ 
drine  war  was  a  war  of  itself,  in  which  Caesar  was  in¬ 
volved  by  his  matchless  audacity  in  following  Pompey 
into  Egypt,  and  perhaps  by  the  sweetness  of  Cleopa¬ 
tra’s  charms.  And  this  led  also  to  a  war  in  Asia  Minor, 
the  account  of  which  is  included  with  that  of  his  Egyp¬ 
tian  campaign.  The  African  war,  and  that  afterwards 


CONCLUSION. 


175 


earned  on  in  Spain  with  the  object  of  crushing  out  tho 
sparks  of  Pompeian  revolt  against  his  power,  are  sim¬ 
ply  the  latter  portions  of  the  civil  war,  and  their  re 
cords  might  have  been  written  as  chapters  added  to  the 
Commentary  “  Do  Bello  Civili.” 

Alexandria,  when  Caesar  landed  there  in  pursuit  of 
Pompey  and  had  offered  to  him  as  a  graceful  tribute 
on  his  first  arrival  the  head  of  his  murdered  rival,  was 
a  city  almost  as  populous  and  quite  as  rich  as  Rome  ; 
and  in  the  city,  and  throughout  the  more  fertile  parts 
of  Egypt,  there  was  a  crowd  of  Eoman  soldiers  left 
there  to  support  and  to  overawe  the  throne  of  the 
Ptolemies.  Caesar,  with  hardly  more  than  half  a  full 
legion  to  support  him,  enters  Alexandria  as  though 
obedience  were  due  to  him  by  all  in  Egypt  as  Pom  an 
consul.  He  at  once  demands  an  enormous  sum  of 
money,  which  he  claims  as  due  to  himself  personally 
for  services  rendered  to  a  former  Ptolemy ;  he  takes 
possession  of  the  person  of  Ptolemy  the  young  king, — 
and  is  taken  possession  of  by  Cleopatra,  the  young  king’s 
sister,  who  was  joint -heir  with  her  brother  to  the  throne. 
In  all  his  career  there  was  perhaps  nothing  more  auda¬ 
cious  than  his  conduct  in  Egypt.  The  Alexandrians, 
or  rather  perhaps  the  Poman  army  in  Egypt  under  the 
leading  of  the  young  king’s  satraps,  rise  against  Caesar, 
and  he  is  compelled  to  fortify  himself  in  the  town.  He 
contrives,  however,  to  burn  all  the  Egyptian  fleet,  and 
with  it  unfortunately  the  royal  library,  as  we  were  told 
by  himself  at  the  end  of  the  last  Commentary.  He  at 
length  allows  Ptolemy  to  go,  giving  him  back  to  the 
Egyptians  and  thinking  that  the  young  king’s  presence 


176 


CONCLUSION. 


may  serve  to  allay  tlie  enmity  of  the  Alexandrians. 
The  young  king  wept  at  leaving  Caesar,  and  declared 
that  even  his  own  kingdom  was  not  so  dear  to  him  as 
the  companionship  of  Caesar.  But  the  crafty  false-faced 
boy  turns  against  Caesar  as  soon  as  he  is  free  to  do  so. 
Caesar  never  was  in  greater  danger ;  and  as  one  reads 
one  feels  one’s  self  to  he  deprived  of  the  right  to  say  that 
no  more  insane  thing  was  ever  done  than  Caesar  did 
when  he  swaggered  into  Alexandria  without  an  army 
at  his  back, — only  by  the  remembrance  that  Caesar  was 
Caesar.  First,  because  he  wanted  some  ready  money, 
and  secondly,  because  Cleopatra  was  pretty,  Caesar  nearly 
lost  the  world  in  Egypt. 

But  there  comes  to  his  help  a  barbarian  ally, — a 
certain  Mithridates  of  Pergamus,  a  putative  son  of  the 
great  Mithridates  of  Pontus.  Mithridates  brings  an 
army  to  Caesar’s  rescue,  and  does  rescue  him.  A  great 
battle  is  fought  on  the  Hile, — a  battle  which  would  have 
been  impossible  to  Caesar  had  not  Mithridates  come  to 
his  aid, — and  the  Egyptians  are  utterly  dispersed.  Young 
Ptolemy  is  drowned;  Cleopatra  is  settled  on  her  throne; 
and  Egypt  becomes  subject  to  Caesar.  Then  Caesar 
hurries  into  Asia,  finding  it  necessary  to  quell  the  arro¬ 
gance  of  a  barbarian  who  had  dared  to  defeat  a  Roman 
general.  The  unfortunate  conqueror  is  Pharnaces,  the 
undoubted  son  of  Mithridates  of  Pontus.  But  Caesar 
comes,  and  sees,  and  conquers.  He  engages  Pharnaces 
at  Zela,  and  destroys  his  army  ;  and  then,  we  are  told, 
inscribed  upon  his  banners  those  insolent  words — 
“  Yeni,  vidi,  viei.”  He  had  already  been  made  Dicta¬ 
tor  of  the  Roman  Empire  for  an  entire  year,  and  had 


CONCLUSION. 


177 


revelled  with.  Cleopatra  at  Alexandria,  and  was  becom¬ 
ing  a  monarch. 

These  were  the  campaigns  of  the  year  47  B.a,  and 
the  record  of  them  is  made  in  the  Commentary  “De 
Bello  Alexandrino.” 

In  the  mean  time  things  have  not  been  going  altogether 
smoothly  for  Caesar  in  Italy,  although  his  friends  at 
Borne  have  made  him  Dictator.  His  soldiers  have  mu¬ 
tinied  against  their  officers,  and  against  his  authority; 
and  a  great  company  of  Pompeians  is  collected  in  that 
province  of  Africa  in  which  poor  Curio  was  conquered 
by  Juba, — when  Juba  had  Bornan  senators  walking 
in  his  train,  and  Caesar’s  army  was  destroyed.  The 
province  called  by  the  name  of  Africa  lay  just  opposite 
to  Sicily,  and  was  blessed  with  that  Boman  civilisation 
which  belonged  to  the  possessions  of  the  Bepublic 
which  were  nearest  to  Borne,  the  great  centre  of 
all  things.  It  is  now  the  stronghold  of  the  Bepubli- 
can  faction, — as  being  the  one  spot  of  Boman  ground  in 
which  Caesar  had  failed  of  success.  Pompey,  indeed,  is 
no  more,  but  Pompey’s  two  sons  are  here, — and  Scipio, 
I'ompey’s  father-in-law,  whom  Pompey  had  joined  with 
himself  in  the  command  at  Pharsalus.  Labienus  is 
here,  who,  since  he  turned  from  Caesar,  has  been  more 
Pompeian  than  Pompey  himself ;  and  Afranius,  to 
whom  Caesar  was  so  kind  in  Spain ;  and  Petreius  and 
King  Juba, — of  whom  a  joint  story  has  yet  to  be  told; 
and  Varus,  who  held  the  province  against  Curio; — and 
last  of  all  there  is  that  tower  of  strength,  the  great  Cato, 
the  most  virtuous  and  impracticable  of  men,  who, 
in  spite  of  his  virtue,  is  always  in  the  wrong,  and  of 

a.  o.  vok  iv.  m 


178 


CON  CL  USION. 


whom  the  world  at  large  only  remembers  that  he  was 
fond  of  wine,  and  that  he  destroyed  himself  at  Utica. 

They  are  all  at  Utica, — and  to  them  for  the  present 
Utica  is  Rome.  They  establish  a  Senate;  and  Scipio, 
who  is  unworthy  of  the  great  name  he  bears,  and  is  in¬ 
competent  as  a  general,  is  made  commander-in-chief, 
because  Cato  decides  that  law  and  routine  so  require. 
Scipio  had  been  consul, — had  been  joint  commander 
with  Pompey, — and  his  rank  is  the  highest.  The  same 
argument  had  been  used  when  he  was  joined  in  that 
command, — that  it  was  fitting  that  such  power  should 
be  given  to  him  because  he  was  of  consular  rank.  The 
command  of  the  Republican  fleet  had  been  intrusted 
to  Bibulus  on  the  same  ground.  We  never  hear  of 
Caesar  so  bestowing  promotion.  He  indeed  is  now  and 
again  led  away  by  another  fault,  trusting  men  simply 
because  he  loves  them, — by  what  we  may  call  favourit¬ 
ism, — as  he  did  when  he  allowed  Curio  to  lose  his  army 
in  Africa,  and  thus  occasioned  all  this  subsequent 
trouble.  As  we  read  of  Scipio’s  rank  we  remember  that 
we  have  heard  of  similar  cause  for  ill-judged  promo¬ 
tion  in  later  times.  The  Pompeians,  however,  collect 
an  enormous  army.  They  have  ten  Roman  legions, 
and  are  supported,  moreover,  by  the  whole  force  of 
King  Juba.  This  army,  we  are  told,  is  as  numerous  as 
that  which  Pompey  commanded  at  Pharsalus.  There 
is  quarrelling  among  them  for  authority;  quarrelling  as 
to  strategy;  jealousy  as  to  the  barbarian,  with  acknow¬ 
ledged  inability  to  act  without  him; — and  the  reader 
feels  that  it  is  all  in  vain.  Caesar  comes,  having  quelled 
the  mutiny  of  his  own  old  veterans  in  Italy  by  a  few 


CONCLUSION. 


179 


words.  He  has  gone  among  them  fearing  nothing ; 
they  demand  their  discharge — he  grants  it.  They 
require  the  rewards  which  they  think  to  he  their  due, 
and  he  tells  them  that  they  shall  have  their  money, — 
when  he  has  won  it  with  other  legions.  Then  he  ad¬ 
dresses  them  not  as  soldiers,  hut  as  “  citizens  ” — “  Qui- 
rites and  that  they  cannot  stand ;  it  implies  that 
they  are  no  longer  the  invincible  soldiers  of  Caesar. 
They  rally  round  him  ;  the  legions  are  re-formed,  and 
'he  lands  in  Africa  with  a  small  army  indeed, — at  first 
with  little  more  than  three  thousand  men, — and  is  again 
nearly  destroyed  in  the  very  first  battle.  But  after  a  few 
months  campaigning  the  old  story  has  to  he  told  again. 
A  great  battle  is  fought  at  Thapsus,  a  year  and  five 
months  after  that  of  Pharsalia,  and  the  Republic  is 
routed  again  and  for  ever.  The  commentator  tells  us 
that  on  this  occasion  the  ferocity  of  Caesar’s  veterans 
was  so  great,  that  by  no  entreaties,  by  no  commands, 
could  they  be  induced  to  cease  from  the  spilling  of  blood. 

But  of  the  destruction  of  the  leaders  separate  stories 
are  told  us.  Of  Cato  is  the  first  story,  and  that  best 
known  to  history.  He  finds  himself  obliged  to  sur¬ 
render  the  town  of  Utica  to  Caesar;  and  then,  “  he  him¬ 
self  having  carefully  settled  his  own  affairs,  and  having 
commended  his  children  to  Lucius  Caesar,  who  was 
then  acting  with  him  as  his  quaestor,  with  his  usual 
gait  and  countenance,  so  as  to  cause  no  suspicion,  he 
took  his  sword  with  him  into  his  bedroom  when  it  was 
his  time  to  retire  to  rest, — and  so  killed  himself.” 
Scipio  also  killed  himself.  Afranius  was  killed  by 
Caesar’s  soldiers.  Labienus,  and  the  two  sons  of  Pom- 


180 


CON  CL  USION. 


pey,  and  Varus,  escaped  into  Spain.  Then  comes  the 
story  of  King  Juba  and  Petreius.  Juba  had  collected 
his  wives  and  children,  and  all  his  wealth  of  gold  and 
jewels  and  rich  apparel,  into  a  town  of  his  called  Zama; 
and  there  he  had  built  a  vast  funeral-pile,  on  which, 
in  the  event  of  his  being  conquered  by  Caesar,  he  in¬ 
tended  to  perish, — meaning  that  his  wives  and  children 
and  dependants  and  rich  treasures  should  all  be  burned 
with  him.  So,  when  he  was  defeated,  he  returned  to 
Zama;  but  his  wives  and  children  and  dependants, 
being  less  magnificently  minded  than  their  king,  and 
knowing  his  royal  purpose,  and  being  unwilling  to 
become  ornaments  to  his  euthanasia,  would  not  let 
him  enter  the  place.  Then  he  went  to  his  old  Eo- 
man  friend  Petreius,  and  they  two  sat  down  together 
to  supper.  Petreius  was  he  who  would  not  allow 
Afranius  to  surrender  to  Caesar  at  Lerida.  "When  they 
have  supped,  Juba  proposes  that  they  shall  fight  each 
other,  so  that  one  at  least  may  die  gloriously.  They 
do  fight,  and  Petreius  is  quickly  killed.  “  Juba  being 
the  stronger,  easily  destroyed  the  weaker  Petreius  with 
his  sword.”  Then  the  barbarian  tried  to  kill  himself ; 
but,  failing,  got  a  slave  to  finish  the  work.  The  battle 
of  Thapsus  was  fought,  b.c.  47.  IsTumidia  is  made  a 
province  by  Caesar,  and  so  Africa  is  won.  We  may 
say  that  the  Eoman  Eepublic  died  with  Cato  at  Utica. 

The  Spanish  war,  which  afforded  matter  for  the  last 
Commentary,  is  a  mere  stamping  out  of  the  embers. 
Caesar,  after  the  affair  in  Africa,  goes  to  Kome ;  and  the 
historian  begins  his  chronicle  by  telling  us  that  he  is 
detained  there  “  muneribus  dandis,” — by  the  distribu- 


CONCLUSION. 


181 


tion  of  rewards, — keeping  his  promise,  no  doubt,  to  those 
veterans  wliom  ho  won  hack  to  their  military  obedience 
by  calling  them  “  Quirites,”  or  Roman  citizens.*  The 
sons  of  Pompey,  Cnosus  and  Sextus,  have  collected  to¬ 
gether  a  great  number  of  men  to  support  their  worn-out 
cause,  and  we  are  told  that  in  the  battle  of  Munda 
more  than  30,000  men  perished.  But  that  was  the 
end  of  it.  Labienus  and  Varus  are  killed ;  and  the 
historian  tells  us  that  a  funeral  was  made  for  them. 
One  Scapula,  of  whom  it  is  said  that  he  was  the  pro¬ 
moter  of  all  this  Spanish  rebellion,  eats  his  supper,  has 
himself  anointed,  and  is  killed  on  his  funeral -pile. 
C  nag  us,  the  elder  son  of  Pompey,  escapes  wounded, 
but  at  last  is  caught  in  a  cave,  and  is  killed.  Sextus, 
the  younger,  escapes,  and  becomes  a  leading  rebel  for 
some  years  longer,  till  at  last  he  also  is  killed  by  one 
of  Antony’s  officers. 

This  Commentary  is  ended,  or  rather  is  brought  to 
an  untimely  close,  in  the  middle  of  a  speech  which 
Caesar  makes  to  the  inhabitants  of  Hipsala, — Seville, — 
in  which  he  tells  them  in  strong  language  how  well  he 
behaves  to  them,  and  how  very  badly  they  have  be- 

*  Not  in  the  Commentary,  but  elsewhere,  we  learn  that  lie 
now  triumphed  four  times,  for  four  different  victories,  taking 
care  to  claim  none  for  any  victory  won  over  Roman  soldiers. 
On  four  different  days  he  was  carried  through  the  city  with  his 
legions  and  hiS  spoils  and  his  captives.  His  first  triumph  was 
for  the  Gallic  wars;  and  on  that  day  Vercingetorix,  the  gallant 
Gaul  whom  we  remember,  and  who  had  now  been  six  years  in 
prison,  was  strangled  to  do  Caesar  honour.  I  think  we  hate 
Caesar  the  more  for  his  cruelty  to  those  who  were  not  Romans, 
because  policy  induced  him  to  spare  his  countrymen. 


182 


CON  CL  USION. 


haved  to  him.  But  we  reach  an  abrupt  termination 
in  the  middle  of  a  sentence. 

After  the  battle  of  Munda  Csesar  returned  to  Rome, 
and  enjoyed  one  year  of  magnificent  splendour  and 
regal  power  in  Rome.  He  is  made  Consul  for  ten  years, 
and  Dictator  for  life.  He  is  still  high  priest,  and  at 
last  is  called  King.  He  makes  many  laws,  and  perhaps 
adds  the  crowning  jewel  to  his  imperishable  diadem  of 
glory  by  reforming  the  calendar,  and  establishing  a 
proper  rotation  of  months  and  days,  so  as  to  comprise 
a  properly-divided  year.  But  as  there  is  no  Commen¬ 
tary  of  this  year  of  Caesar’s  life,  our  readers  will  not 
expect  that  we  should  treat  of  it  here.  How  he  was 
struck  to  death  by  Brutus,  Cassius,  and  the  other  con¬ 
spirators,  and  fell  at  the  foot  of  Pompey’s  statue,  gather¬ 
ing  his  garments  around  him  gracefully,  with  a  policy 
that  was  glorious  and  persistent  to  the  last,  is  known 
to  all  men  and  women. 

“  Then  burst  his  mighty  heart ; 

And  in  his  mantle  muffling  up  his  face, 

Even  at  the  base  of  Pompey’s  statua, 

Which  all  the  while  ran  blood,  Great  Caesar  fell.” 

That  he  had  done  his  work,  and  that  he  died  in 
time  to  save  his  name  and  fame  from  the  evil  deeds 
of  which  unlimited  power  in  the  State  would  too 
probably  have  caused  the  tyrant  to  he  guilty,  was 
perhaps  not  the  least  fortunate  circumstance  in  a  career 
which  for  good  fortune  has  been  unequalled  in  history. 


THE  END. 


Ancient  Classics  for  English  Readers 

EDITED  BY  THE 

REV.  W.  LUCAS  COLLINS,  M.A. 


VIEGIL 


4 


CONTENTS  OF  THE  SERIES, 


HOMER :  THE  ILIAD,  .  .  .  .  By  the  Editor. 

HOMER:  THE  ODYSSEY,  .  .  By  the  Same. 


HERODOTUS,  ...  By  George  C.  Swayne,  M.A. 

CAESAR, . By  Anthony  Trollope. 

VIRGIL, . By  the  Editor. 

HORACE, . By  Theodore  Martin. 

^ESCHYLUS,  By  the  Right  Rev.  the  Bishop  of  Colombo. 
XENOPHON,  .  .  By  Sir  Alex.  Grant,  Bart.,  LL.D. 

CICERO . By  the  Editor. 

SOPHOCLES,  ...  By  Clifton  W.  Collins,  M.A. 
PLINY,  By  A.  Church,  M.A.,  and  W.  J.  Brodribb,  M.A. 
EURIPIDES.  ...  By  William  Bodham  Donne. 
JUVENAL,  ....  By  Edward  Walford,  M.A. 

ARISTOPHANES, . By  the  Editor. 

HESIOD  AND  THEOGNIS,  By  the  Rev.  James  Davies,  M.A. 
PLAUTUS  AND  TERENCE,  ...  By  the  Editor. 

TACITUS,  ....  By  William  Bodham  Donne. 

LUCIAN,  . . By  the  Editor. 

PLATO, . By  Clifton  W.  Collins. 

THE  GREEK  ANTHOLOGY,  ...  By  Lord  Neaves. 

LIVY . By  the  Editor. 

OVID . By  the  Rev.  A.  Church,  M.A. 


CATULLUS,  TIBULLUS,  &  PROPERTIUS,  ByJ.  Davies,  M.A, 
DEMOSTHENES, .  •  By  the  Rev.  W.  J.  Brodribb,  M.A. 


ARISTOTLE, .  .  .By  Sir  Alex.  Grant,  Bart.,  LL.D. 

THUCYDIDES, . By  the  Editor. 

LUCRETIUS,*  .  .  .  .  By  W.  H.  Mallock,  M.A. 
PINDAR,  ...  By  the  Rev.  F.  D.  Morice,  M.A. 


VIRGIL 


BY  THE 

REV.  W.  IUCAS  COLLINS,  M. A. 

AUTHOR  OF 

‘btoniana/  ‘thb  public  schools/  bt« 


PHILADELPHIA: 

J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY. 


V 


CONTENTS. 


PAM 

INTRODUCTION, . 1 

THE  POET,  .........  3 

THE  PASTORALS,  ........  13 

THE  GEORGICS,  ........  28 

THE  ENEID, — 

CHAP.  I.  THE  SHIPWRECK  ON  THE  COAST  OF  CARTHAGE,  41 
ii  II.  ENEAS  RELATES  THE  FALL  OF  TROY,  .  53 

ii  III.  ./ENEAS  CONTINUES  HIS  NARRATIVE,  .  64 

ii  IV.  DIDO, . 71 

ii  V.  THE  FUNERAL  GAMES,  .  .  .  .85 

n  VI.  THE  SIBYL  AND  THE  SHADES,  .  .  .105 

it  VII.  THE  TROJANS  LAND  IN  LATIUM,  128 

II  VIII.  THE  MUSTER  OF  THE  LATIN  TRIBES,  .  137 

n  IX.  .ENEAS  MAKES  ALLIANCE  WITH  EVANDER,  145 
II  X.  ■  TURNUS  ATTACKS  THE  TROJAN  ENCAMPMENT,  153 
II  XI.  THE  DEATH  OF  PALLAS,  .  .  .  .161 

ii  XII.  THE  DEATH  OF  CAMILLA,  .  .  .  167 

n  XIII.  THE  LAST  COMBAT, . 171 

«  XIV.  CONCLUDING  REMARKS,  .  .  .  .180 


. 


INTBODUCTION. 


Virgil  lias  always  been,  for  one  reason  or  other,  the 
most  popular  of  all  the  old  classical  Avriters.  His  poems 
were  a  favourite  study  with  his  own  countrymen,  even 
in  his  own  generation ;  within  fifty  years  of  his  death 
they  were  admitted  to  the  very  questionable  honour, 
which  they  have  retained  ever  since,  of  serving  as  a 
text-book  for  schoolboys.  The  little  Romans  studied 
their  Hineid,  from  their  master’s  dictation,  as  regularly, 
and  probably  with  quite  as  much  appreciation  of  its 
beauties,  as  the  fourth  form  of  an  English  public 
school,  and  wrote  “  declamations  ”  of  some  kind  upon 
its  heroes.  In  the  middle  ages,  when  Greek  literature 
had  become  almost  a  deserted  field,  and  Homer  in  the 
original  was  a  sealed  book  even  to  those  who  con¬ 
sidered  themselves  and  were  considered  scholars,  Virgil 
was  still  the  favourite  with  young  and  old.  The 
monks  in  their  chronicles,  philosophers  in  their  secu¬ 
lar  studies,  enlivened  their  pages  with  quotations  from 
the  one  author  with  whom  no  man  of  letters  would 
venture  to  confess  himself  wholly  unacquainted.  The 
a.  c.  vol.  v. 


A 


2 


INTRODUCTION . 


works  of  Virgil  liad  passed  through,  above  forty  edi¬ 
tions  in  Europe  before  the  first  printed  edition  of 
Homer  appeared  from  the  Florence  press  in  1448.  He 
has  been  translated,  imitated,  and  parodied  in  all  the 
chief  European  languages.  The  fate  of  Dido,  of  Pal¬ 
las,  and  of  Euryalus,  has  drawn  tears  from  successive 
generations  of  which  the  poet  never  dreamed. 

In  the  middle  ages  his  fame  underwent  a  singular 
transformation.  From  the  magic  power  of  song  the 
transition  seems  incongruous  to  the  coarser  material 
agency  of  the  wizard.  But  so  it  was ;  Virgilius  the 
poet  became,  in  mediaeval  legends,  Virgilius  the  magi¬ 
cian.  One  of  his  Eclogues  (the  Eighth),  in  which  are 
introduced  the  magical  charms  by  which  it  is  sought  to 
reclaim  a  wandering  lover,  is  supposed  to  have  given 
the  first  impulse  to  this  superstitious  belief.  All  kinds 
of  marvels  Avere  attributed  to  his  agency.  It  Avas  said 
that  he  built  at  Eome,  for  the  Emperor  Augustus,  a 
wondrous  toAver,  in  which  A\rere  set  up  emblematic 
figures  of  all  the  subject  nations  Avhich  acknoAvledged 
the  imperial  rule,  each  with  a  bell  in  its  hand,  which 
rang  out  whenever  Avar  or  revolt  broke  out  in  that 
particular  province,  so  that  Pome  kneAV  at  once  in 
what  direction  to  march  her  legions.  In  the  same 
building — so  the  legend  ran — he  contrived  a  magic 
mirror,  in  Avhich  the  enemies  of  the  Empire  could  be 
seen  Avhen  they  appeared  in  arms ;  and  another — surely 
the  most  terrible  agency  that  was  ever  imagined  in 
the  Avay  of  domestic  police — in  Avhich  the  guilt  of  any 
Roman  citizen  could  be  at  once  seen  and  detected 
A  fount  of  perpetual  fire,  and  salt-springs  of  medicinal 


INTRODUCTION. 


3 


virtue,  were  said  to  have  been  tlie  gifts  of  the  great 
enchanter  to  the  Roman  populace.  At  Naples  the 
marvels  which  were  attributed  to  his  agency  were 
scarcely  less  \  and  even  now  there  is  scarcely  any 
useful  or  ornamental  public  work  of  early  date,  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  that  city,  which  is  not  in  some  way 
connected  by  vulgar  tradition  with  the  name  of  Virgil. 
The  wondrous  powers  thus  ascribed  to  him  were,  ac¬ 
cording  to  some  legends,  conferred  upon  him  by  Chiron 
the  learned  centaur — by  whom  the  great  Achilles,  and 
the  poet’s  own  hero,  iEneas,  were  said  to  have  been 
educated ;  by  others,  with  that  blending  of  pagan  be¬ 
lief  with  Christian  which  is  so  commonly  found  in 
mediaeval  writers,  they  were  referred  to  direct  commu¬ 
nication  with  the  Evil  One.* 

French  scholars  have  always  had  the  highest  ap¬ 
preciation  of  the  Augustan  poet,  and  his  popularity 

*  One  story  of  this  kind  is  perhaps  curious  enough  for  inser¬ 
tion.  Virgil  is  said  to  have  been  startled  one  day  by  a  voice 
calling  to  him  out  of  a  small  hole  in  a  cave.  It  proceeded 
from  an  Evil  Spirit  who  had  been  conjured  into  that  place  of 
confinement,  and  who  undertook  to  show  Virgil  certain  books 
of  necromancy  on  condition  of  his  release.  The  bargain  was 
made,  and  the  condition  fulfilled.  “He  stood  before  Virgil 
like  a  mighty  man,  whereof  Virgil  was  afraid  ;  and  he  marvel¬ 
led  greatly  that  so  great  a  man  might  come  out  of  so  little  a 
hole.  Then  said  Virgil,  ‘  Should  ye  well  pass  through  the  hole 
that  ye  came  out  of?’  And  he  sa"id,  ‘Yes.’.  ‘I  hold  the 
best  pledge  that  I  have  that  ye  cannot  do  it.’  The  devill  said, 

‘  I  consent  thereto.’  And  then  the  devill  wrang  himself  into 
the  little  hole  again.  And  when  he  was  in,  then  Virgil  closed 
him  there  again,  so  that  he  had  no  power  to  come  out  again, 
but  there  abideth  still.” — [‘Of  the  Lyfe  of  Virgilius  and  hia 
deth,  and  the  many  marvayles  that  he  dyd.’] 


4 


IN  TR  0  DUCT  I  ON. 


in  England  is  to  tliis  day  as  great  as  ever.  Even  a 
practical  House  of  Commons,  not  always  very  patient 
of  argument,  and  notoriously  impatient  of  some  prosaic 
speakers,  will  listen  to  a  quotation  from  Virgil  — 
especially  when  pointed  against  a  political  opponent. 
Those  to  whom  his  rolling  measure  is  familiar  still 
quote  him  and  cheer  him  so  enthusiastically,  that 
others  listen  with  more  or  less  appreciation.  To  the 
many  who  have  almost  forgotten  what  they  once  knew 
of  him,  his  lines  awake  reminiscences  of  their  youth — 
which  are  always  pleasant :  while  even  those  to  whom 
he  is  a  sound  and  nothing  more,  listen  as  with  a  kind 
of  sacred  awe.  The  dehates  of  our  reformed  Parlia¬ 
ment  will  certainly  he  duller,  if  ever  Virgil  comes  to 
he  proscribed  as  an  unknown  tongue. 

English  translators  of  Virgil  have  abounded.  But 
the  earliest  and  by  no  means  the  least  able  of  those 
who  presented  the  Boman  poet  to  our  northern 
islanders  in  their  own  vernacular  w~as  a  Scotsman, 
Bishop  Gawain  Douglas  of  Dunkeld,  that  clerkly 
son  of  old  Archibald  “  Bell -the -Cat”  whom  Scott 
names  in  his  ‘  Marmion.’  Eew  modern  readers  of 
Virgil  are  likely  to  be  proficients  in  the  ancient 
northern  dialect  which  the  bishop  used ;  but  those 
who  can  appreciate  him  maintain  that  there  is  con¬ 
siderable  vigour  as  well  as  faithfulness  in  his  version. 
Thomas  Phaer,  a  Welsh  physician,  was  the  next 
who  made  the  attempt,  in  the-  long  verses  known  as 
Alexandrine,  in  1558.  A  few  years  later  came  forth 
what  might  fairly  be  called  the  comic  English  version, 
though  undertaken  in  the  most  serious  earnest  by  the 


INTRODUCTION. 


5 


translator.  This  was  Richard  Stanyhurst,  an  Irish¬ 
man,  a  graduate  of  Oxford  and  student  of  Lincoln’s 
Inn.  He  seems  to  have  heen  the  original  prophet  of 
that  “  pestilent  heresy,”  as  Lord  Derby  calls  it,  the 
making  of  English  hexameters;  for  that  was  the  metre 
which  he  chose,  and  he  congratulates  himself  in  his  pre¬ 
face  upon  “  having  no  English  writer  before  him  in  this 
kind  of  poetry.”  Without  going  so  far  as  to  endorse 
Lord  Derby’s  severe  judgment,  it  may  he  confessed  that 
Stanyhurst  did  his  best  to  justify  it.  His  translation, 
which  he  ushered  into  public  with  the  most  profound 
self-satisfaction,  is  quite  curious  enough  to  account  for 
its  reprint  by  the  “  Edinburgh  Printing  Society  ”  in 
1836.  One  of  the  points  upon  which  he  prides  him¬ 
self  is  the  suiting  the  sound  to  the  sense,  which  Virgil 
himself  has  done  happily  enough  in  some  rare  pas¬ 
sages.  So  when  he  has  to  translate  the  line, 

“  Exoritur  clamorque  virum  clangorque  tubarum  ” 
he  does  it  as  follows  • — 

“  The  townsmen  roared,  the  trump  tara-tantara  rattled.” 

When  he  has  to  express  the  Cyclops  forging  the 
thunderbolts,  it  is 

u  With  peale  meale  ramping,  with  thick  thwack  sturdily 
thund’ring;” 

and  very  much  more  of  the  same  kind. 

The  Earl  of  Surrey  and  James  Harrington  tried 
their  hand  at  detached  portions,  and  although  the 
quaint  conceits  which  were  admired  in  their  day  have 
little  charm  for  the  modern  reader,  there  is  not  want- 


6 


INTRODUCTION. 


ing,  especially  in  the  former,  a  spirit  and  vigour  in 
which  some  of  those  who  came  before  and  after  them 
lamentably  failed.  The  translations  by  Vicars  and 
Ogilby,  about  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
have  little  claim  to  be  remembered  except  as  the  first 
presentations  of  the  whole  jEneid  in  an  English  poetical 
dress.  In  dull  mediocrity  they  are  about  equal. 

In  1697,  Dryden,  at  the  age  of  sixty-six,  finished 
and  published  his  translation ;  written,  as  he  patheti¬ 
cally  says,  “in  his  declining  years,  struggling  with 
want,  and  oppressed  with  sickness ;  ”  yet,  whatever 
be  its  shortcomings,  a  confessedly  great  work,  and 
showing  few  traces  of  these  unfavourable  circum¬ 
stances.  His  great  renown,  and  the  unquestionable 
vigour  and  ability  of  the  versification,  insured  its 
popularity  at  once ;  and  it  was  considered,  by  the 
critics  of  his  own  and  some  succeeding  generations, 
as  pre-eminently  the  English  Virgil.  Dr  Johnson  said 
of  it  that  “it  satisfied  his  friends  and  silenced  his 
enemies.”  It  may  still  be  read  with  pleasure,  but  it 
has  grave  faults.  Independently  of  its  general  loose¬ 
ness  and  diffuseness,  in  many  passages  amounting  to 
the  vaguest  paraphrase,  there  are  too  many  instances 
in  which,  not  content  with  making  his  author  say  a 
good  many  things  which  he  never  did  say,  he  palpably 
misinterprets  him.  There  are  many  passages  of  much 
vigour  and  beauty  ;  but  even  of  these  it  has  been  said, 
and  not  unfairly,  by  a  later  translator,  Dr  Trapp,  that 
“where  you  most  admire  Dryden,  you  see  the  least  of 
Virgil.”  Dryden  had  the  advantage  of  consulting  in 
manuscript  a  translation  by  the  Earl  of  Lauderdale 


INTRODUCTION. 


7 


(afterwards  published),  which  has  considerable  merit, 
and  to  which  in  his  preface  he  confesses  obligations 
“  not  inconsiderable.”  They  were,  in  fact,  so  consider¬ 
able  as  this,  that  besides  other  hints  in  the  matter  of 
words  and  phrases,  he  borrowed  nearly  four  hundred 
lines  in  different  places,  with  scarcely  an  attempt  at 
change. 

Dry  den  was  followed  by  various  other  translators 
more  or  less  successful.  Pitt  and  Symmons,  the  latter 
especially,  might  have  earned  a  greater  reputation  had 
they  preceded  instead  of  followed  the  great  poet  whose 
laurels  they  plainly  challenged  by  adopting  his  metre. 
But  the  recent  admirable  translation  of  the  iEneid  into 
the  metre  of  Scott  by  Mr  Conington  will  undoubtedly 
take  its  place  henceforward  as  by  far  the  most  poetical, 
as  it  is  also  the  most  faithful  and  scholarly,  rendering 
of  the  original. 


THE  POET 


Publius  Virgilius  Maro — such  was  his  full  name, 
though  we  have  abbreviated  the  sounding  Roman 
appellatives  into  the  curt  English  form  of  “Virgil” — 
lived  in  the  age  when  the  great  Roman  Empire  was 
culminating  to  its  fall,  but  as  yet  showed  little  symp¬ 
tom  of  decay.  The  emperor  under  whom  he  was  born 
was  that  Octavianus  Caesar,  nephew  of  the  great  Julius, 
whose  title  of  “  Augustus  ”  gave  a  name  to  his  own 
times  which  has  since  passed  into  a  common  term  for 
the  golden  age  of  literature  in  every  nation.  In  the 
Augustan  age  of  Rome  rose  and  flourished,  in  rapid 
succession,  a  large  proportion  of  those  great  writers  to 
whoae  works  we  have  given  the  name  of  classics.  This 
brilliant  summer-time  of  literature  was  owing  to  vari¬ 
ous  causes — to  the  increase  of  cultivation  and  refine 
ment,  to  the  leisure  and  quiet  which  followed  after 
long  years  of  war  and  civil  commotion ;  but  in  part 
also  it  was  owing  to  the  character  of  the  Roman 
emperor  himself.  Both  Augustus  and  his  intimate 


THE  POET. 


9 


friend  and  counsellor  Maecenas  were  the  professed 
patrons  of  letters  and  of  the  fine  arts.  Maecenas  was 
of  the  highest  patrician  "blood  of  Rome.  He  claimed 
descent  from  the  old  Etruscan  kings  or  Lucumos — - 
those  ancient  territorial  chiefs  who  ruled  Italy  while 
Rome  was  yet  in  her  infancy,  such  as  Lars  Porsena  of 
Clusium.  Clever  and  accomplished,  an  able  statesman 
in  spite  of  all  his  indolence,  Maecenas  had  immense 
influence  with  Augustus.  At  his  splendid  palace  on 
the  Esquiline  Hill — the  Holland  House  of  the  day — 
met  all  the  brilliant  society  of  Rome,  and  his  name 
very  soon  became  a  synonym  for  a  liberal  patron  of  art 
and  literature.  To  he  eminent  in  any  branch  of  these 
accomplishments  was  to  insure  the  notice  of  the  minis¬ 
ter ;  and  to  be  a  protege  of  his  was  an  introduction  at 
once,  under  the  happiest  auspices,  to  the  emperor  him¬ 
self.  Such  good  fortune  occurred  to  Virgil  early  in 
his  life. 

He  was  horn  in  the  little  village  of  Andes  (probably 
the  modern  Pietola),  near  Mantua,  and  received  a 
liberal  education,  as  is  sufficiently  evident  from  the 
many  allusions  in  his  poems.  When  grown  to  man¬ 
hood,  he  seems  to  have  lived  for  some  years  with 
his  father  upon  his  modest  -family  estate.  He 
suffered,  like  very  many  of  his  countrymen  —  his 
friend  and  fellow-poet  Horace  among  the  number — 
from  the  results  of  the  great  civil  wars  which  so  long 
desolated  Italy,  and  which  ended  in  the  fall  of  the 
Republic  at  the  battle  of  Philippi.  The  district  near 
Mantua  was  assigned  and  parcelled  out  among  the 
legionaries  who  had  fought  for  Antony  and  young 


10 


THE  POET. 


Octavianus  against  Pompey.  Cremona  had  espoused 
the  cause  of  the  latter,  and  Mantua,  as  Virgil  himself 
tells  us,  suffered  for  the  sins  of  its  neighbour.  His 
little  estate  was  confiscated,  amongst  others,  to  reward 
the  veterans  who  had  claims  on  the  gratitude  of  Octavia- 
nus.  But  through  the  intercession  of  some  powerful 
friend  who  had  influence  with  the  young  emperor — 
probably  Asinius  Pollio,  hereafter  mentioned,  who  was 
prefect  of  the  province — they  were  soon  restored  to 
him.  This  obligation  Virgil  never  forgot ;  and 
amongst  the  many  of  all  ranks  who  poured  their  flat¬ 
tery  into  the  ears  of  Augustus  (as  Octavianus  must 
be  henceforth  called),  perhaps  that  of  the  young 
Mantuan  poet,  though  bestowed  with  something  of 
a  poet’s  exaggeration,  was  amongst  the  most  sincere. 
The  first  of  his  Pastorals  was  written  to  express  his 
gratitude  for  the  indulgence  which  had  been  granted 
him.  If  the  Caesar  of  the  day  was  susceptible  of 
flattery,  at  least  he  liked  it  good  of  its  kind.  “  Stroke 
him  awkwardly,”  said  Horace,  “and  he  winces  like  a 
restive  horse.”  But  the  verse  of  the  Mantuan  poet 
had  the  ring  of  poetry  as  well  as  compliment. 

These  Pastorals  (to  be  more  particularly  noticed 
hereafter)  were  his  earliest  work,  composed,  probably, 
between  his  twenty-seventh  and  thirty-fourth  year, 
while  he  was  still  living  a  country  life  on  his  newly 
recovered  farm.  They  seem  to  have  attracted  the 
favourable  attention  of  Maecenas ;  and  soon,  among 
the  brilliant  crowd  of  courtiers,  statesmen,  artists, 
poets,  and  historians  who  thronged  the  audience- 
chamber  of  the  popular  minister,  might  be  seen  the 


TEE  POET. 


11 


tall,  slouching,  somewhat  plebeian  figure  of  the  young 
country  poet.*  He  soon  became  a  familiar  guest 
there ;  but  although  Augustus  himself,  half  in  jest, 
was  said  to  have  spoken  of  his  minister’s  literary  din¬ 
ners  as  a  “  table  of  parasites,”  it  is  certain  Virgil  never 
deserved  the  character.  This  intimacv  with  Maecenas 

V 

must  have  led  to  frequent  and  prolonged  visits  to 
Rome ;  but  his  chief  residence,  after  he  left  his  Man¬ 
tuan  estate,  seems  to  have  been  at  Naples.  It  was  at 
the  suggestion  of  this  patron  that  he  set  about  the 
composition  of  his  poem  upon  Roman  agriculture  and 
stock-breeding — the  four  books  of  Georgies.  His 
greatest  and  best-known  work — the  Hhieid — was  be¬ 
gun  in  obedience  to  a  hint  thrown  out  by  a  still 
higher  authority,  though  he  seems  to  have  long  had  the 
subject  in  his  thoughts,  and  probably  had  begun  to 
put  it  into  shape.  Augustus  had  condescended  to  ask 
the  poet  to  undertake  some  grander  theme  than  an  ima¬ 
ginary  pastoral  life  or  the  management  of  the  country 
farm.  The  result  was  the  iEneid,  modelled  upon  the 
two  great  poems  of  Homer — in  fact,  a  Roman  Iliad  and 
Odyssey  combined  in  one.  It  was  never  completely 
finished,  for  Virgil,  whose  health  was  at  no  time  robust, 
died  before  he  had  put  in  the  finishing  touches  which 
his  fastidious  taste  required.  It  is  even  said  that  in 
his  last  illness  he  would  have  burnt  the  copy,  if  his 
friends  would  have  allowed  the  sacrifice.  It  is  hardly 

*  It  lias  been  thought  that  the  friend  of  whom  Horace  speaks 
(Sat.  I.  3,  31),  under  whose  somewhat  slovenly  dress  and  rustic 
bearing  lay  hid  so  much  talent  and  worth,  may  have  been 
Virgil. 


12 


THE  POET. 


probable,  as  a  German  scholar  has  ingeniously  suggest¬ 
ed,  that  it  was  because  the  cruelties  of  Augustus’s  later 
years  made  him  rejDent  of  having  immortalised  a  tyrant. 
He  died  in  his  fifty-first  year,  at  Brundusium,  where 
he  had  landed  in  the  suite  of  the  emperor,  whom  he 
had  met  during  a  visit  to  Athens,  and  who  brought 
him  back  with  him  to  Italy.  He  was  buried,  as  was 
the  custom  of  the  Romans,  by  the  side  of  the  public 
road  leading  out  of  Naples  to  Puteoli ;  and  the  tomb 
still  shown  to  travellers,  near  Posilippo,  as  the  last 
resting-place  of  the  poet,  may  at  least  mark  the  real 
site.  He  died  a  comparatively  rich  man,  possessed  of 
a  town-house  at  Rome,  near  the  palace  of  Maecenas, 
with  a  good  library.  Living,  as  he  did,  in  the  highest 
society  of  the  capital,  where  he  was  very  popular,  he 
never  forgot  his  old  friends  ;  and  it  is  pleasant  to  read 
that  he  sent  money  to  his  aged  parents  regularly  every 
year.  So  highly  was  he  esteemed  by  his  own  co¬ 
temporaries,  that  on  one  occasion  when  he  visited  the 
theatre,  the  whole  audience  is  said  to  have  risen  in  a 
body  and  saluted  him  with  the  same  honours  which 
were  paid  to  Augustus.  He  preserved  to  the  last  his 
simple  manners  and  somewhat  rustic  appearance ;  and 
it  is  believed  that  his  character,  amongst  all  the  pre 
valent  vices  of  Rome,  remained  free  from  reproach — 
saving  only  that  with  which  he  was  taunted  by  the 
libertines  of  the  capital,  the  reproach  of  personal  purity. 
It  is  as  much  to  his  honour  that  Caligula  should  have 
ordered  all  his  busts  to  be  banished  from  the  public 
libraries,  as  that  St  Augustin  should  have  quoted  him 
alone  of  heathen  authors,  in  his  celebrated  ‘Confessions.* 


THE  PASTORALS. 


The  earliest  written  poems  of  Virgil,  as  lias  been 
said,  were  liis  Pastorals.  Of  these  we  have  ten 
remaining,  sometimes  called  “  Bucolics  ” — ?'.  e.,  Songs 
of  the  Herdsmen — and  sometimes  “Eclogues,”  as 
being  “  selections  ”  from  a  larger  number  of  similar 
compositions  which  the  poet  either  never  made  public, 
or  which  at  least  are  lost  to  us.  The  actual  subjects 
of  these  poems  are  various,  but  they  are  usually  intro¬ 
duced  in  the  way  of  imaginary  dialogue  between  Greek 
shepherds,  keeping  their  flocks  and  herds  at  pasture 
in  some  imaginary  woodland  country,  which  the  poet 
peoples  with  inhabitants  and  supplies  with  scenery  at 
his  will;  mixing  up,  as  poets  only  may,  the  features  of 
his  own  Italian  landscape  with  those  of  Sicily,  bor¬ 
rowed,  with  much  besides,  from  the  Idylls  of  Theoc¬ 
ritus,  and  with  reminiscences  of  the  Greek  Arcadia. 
That  pastoral  faery-land,  in  which  shepherds  lay  all 
day  under  beech-trees,  playing  on  their  pipes,  either 
in  rivalr}r  for  a  musical  prize  or  composing  monodies 
on  their  lost  loves,  surely  never  existed  in  fact,  how- 


14 


TEE  PASTORALS. 


ever  familiar  to  us  in  the  language  of  ancient  and 
modern  poets.  Such  shepherds  are  as  unreal  as  the 
satyrs  and  fauns  and  dryad-nymphs  with  whom  a 
fanciful  mythology  had  peopled  the  same  region,  and 
who  are  not  unfrequently  introduced  by  the  pastoral 
poets  in  the  company  of  their  human  dramatis  per- 
sonce.  The  Arcadia  of  history  was  a  rich  and  fertile 
district,  well  wooded  and  watered,  and  as  prosaic  as 
one  of  our  own  midland  counties.  Like  them,  if  it 
had  any  reputation  at  all  beyond  that  of  being  excel¬ 
lent  pasture-ground,  it  was  a  reputation  for  dulness. 
It  was  celebrated  for  its  breed  of  asses,  and  some  of 
the  qualities  of  the  animal  seem  to  have  been  shared 
by  the  natives  themselves.  “A  slip  of  Arcadia” 
passed  into  a  proverbial  nickname  for  a  boy  who  was 
the  despair  of  his  schoolmaster.  The  Arcadia  of  the 
poets  and  romance-writers,  from  classical  times  down 
to  our  own  Spenser  and  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  was,  as  Mr 
Conington  says,  “the  poets’  golden  land,  in  which 
imagination  found  a  refuge  from  the  harsh  prosaic  life 
of  the  present.”  This  literary  fancy  enjoyed  a  remark¬ 
able  popularity  from  the  early  days  of  authorship  down 
to  a  very  recent  date.  Thyrsis  and  Amaryllis,  Daph- 
nis  and  Corydon,  have  had  a  continued  poetical  exist¬ 
ence  of  something  like  fifteen  hundred  years,  and  talk 
very  much  the  same  language  in  the  Pastorals  of  Popo 
that  they  did  in  the  Greek  Idylls.  It  is  curious,  also, 
that  when  society  itself  has  been  most  artificial,  this  af¬ 
fectation  of  pastoral  simplicity  seems  to  have  been  most  in 
vogue.  It  was  the  effeminate  courtiers  of  Augustus  who 
lavished  their  applause  and  rewards  upon  Virgil  when 


THE  PASTORALS. 


15 


he  read  to  them  these  lays  of  an  imaginary  shepherd- 
life  ;  how  Galatasa  was  won  by  a  present  of  a  pair  of 
wood-pigeons  or  a  basket  of  apples,  and  how  Meliboeus 
thankfully  went  to  supper  with  his  friend  Tityrus  on 
roasted  chestnuts  and  goat-milk  cheese.  Society  in 
England  had  never  less  of  the  reality  of  pastoral  sim¬ 
plicity  than  in  the  days  when  nearly  every  fine  lady 
chose  to  be  painted  with  a  lamb  or  a  crook — when  the 
“bucolic  cant,”  as  Warton  contemptuously  terms  it, 
was  the  fashionable  folly  of  the  day.  So  when  aris¬ 
tocratic  life  in  France  had  reached  a  phase  of  corrup 
tion  which  was  only  to  be  purged  by  a  revolution, 
Queen  Marie  Antoinette,  with  her  ladies  and  gentle 
men  in  waiting,  were  going  about  the  farm  at  Trianon 
with  crooks  in  their  hands,  playing  at  shepherds 
and  shepherdesses,  on  the  brink  of  that  terrible 
volcano. 

Of  the  ten  Eclogues,  the  majority  take  the  form  of 
pastoral  dialogue.  Frequently  it  is  a  singing-match 
between  two  rival  shepherds — not  always  conducted 
in  the  most  amicable  fashion,  or  with  the  most  scrupu¬ 
lous  delicacy  in  the  matter  of  repartee,  the  poetical 
“Arcadian”  being  in  this  point  a  pretty  faithful  copy 
from  nature.  Most  of  the  names,  as  well  as  of  the 
subjects  and  imagery,  are  taken,  as  has  been  said,  from 
the  Greek  Idylls  of  Theocritus.  So  closely  has  Virgil 
copied  his  model  that  he  even  transplants  the  natural 
scenery  of  Sicily,  employed  by  Theocritus,  to  his  pas¬ 
toral  dreamland,  which  otherwise  would  seem  to  be 
localised  on  the  banks  of  the  Mincio,  in  tho  neigh¬ 
bourhood  of  his  native  Mantua.  This  gives  him  an 


16 


THE  PASTORALS. 


opportunity  of  touching  upon  subjects  of  the  day,  and 
introducing,  in  the  name  and  guise  of  shepherds,  him¬ 
self  and  his  friends.  Sometimes  we  can  see  through 
the  disguise  by  the  heljr  of  contemporary  Koman  history; 
more  often,  probably,  the  clue  is  lost  to  us  through  our 
very 'imperfect  .modern  knowledge.  We  know  pretty 
well  that  Tityrus, — who  in  the  First  Eclogue  expresses 
his  gratitude  to  the  “  godlike  youth  ”  who  has  pre¬ 
served  his  little  farm  from  the  ruthless  hands  of  the 
soldier  colonists,  while  his  poor  neighbour  Meliboeus 
has  lost  his  all, — can  be  no  other  than  the  poet  him¬ 
self,  who  thus  compliments  his  powerful  protector.  So, 
too,  in  a  later  Eclogue,  when  the  slave  Moeris  meets 
his  neighbour  Lycidas  on  the  road,  and  tells  him  how 
his  master  has  been  dispossessed  of  his  farm  by  the 
military  colonists,  and  has  narrowly  escaped  with  his 
life,  we  may  safely  trust  the  traditional  explanation, 
that  in  the  master  Menalcas- we  have  Yirgil  again, 
troubled  a  second  time  by  these  intruders,  and  com¬ 
pelled  to  renew  his  ap plication  to  his  great  friend  at 
Home.  The  traditional  story  was,  that  the  poet  was 
obliged  to  take  refuge  from  the  violence  of  the  sol¬ 
diers  in  the  shop  of  a  charcoal-burner,  who  let  him 
out  at  a  back-door,  and  eventually  had  to  throw 
himself  into  the  river  Mincio  to  escape  their  pursuit. 
Lycidas,  in  the  Pastoral,  is  surprised  to  hear  of  his 
neighbour’s  new  trouble. 

u  Lyc. — I  surely  heard,  that  all  from  where  yon  lulls 
Begin  to  rise,  and  gently  slope  again 
Down  to  the  stream,  where  the  old  beech-trees 
throw 


THE  PASTORALS. 


17 


Their  ragged  time-worn  tops  against  the  sky,* 
Your  poet-master  had  redeemed  by  song. 

Mcer. — You  heard,  no  doubt — and  so  the  story  went ; 

But  song,  good  Lycidas,  avails  as  much, 

When  swords  are  drawn,  as  might  the  trembling 
dove 

When  on  Dodona  swoops  the  eagle  down. 

Nay — had  I  not  been  warned  of  woes  to  come — 
Warned  by  a  raven’s  croak  on  my  left  hand 
From  out  the  hollow  oak — why  then,  my  friend, 
You  had  lost  your  Moeris  and  his  master  too.” 

Honest  Lycidas  expresses  his  horror  at  the  narrow 
escape  of  the  neighbourhood  from  such  a  catastrophe. 
What  should  they  all  have  done  for  a  poet,  if  they 
had  lost  Menalcas  1  who  could  compose  such  songs — 
and  who  could  sing  them  1  And  he  breaks  out  himself 
into  fragmentary  reminiscences  which  he  has  picked 
up  by  ear  from  his  friend.  Then  Moeris  too — who, 
being  a  poet’s  farm-servant,  has  caught  a  little  of  the 
inspiration — repeats  a  few  lines  of  his  master’s.  “  As 
you  hope  for  any  blessings,”  says  Lycidas,  “  let  me 
hear  the  rest  of  it.” 

“  So  may  your  bees  avoid  the  poisonous  yew — 

So  may  your  cows  bring  full-swoln  udders  home — 

If  canst  remember  aught,  begin  at  once.  I  too, 

I  am  a  poet,  by  the  Muses’  grace :  some  songs 
I  have,  mine  own  composing  ;  and  the  swains 
Call  me  their  bard — but  I  were  weak  to  heed  them. 

I  cannot  vie  with  masters  of  the  art 

*  It  is  not  difficult  to  believe  that  in  the  old  time-worn 
beeches  overhanging  the  stream  we  have  the  actual  landscape 
of  the  poet’s  farm. 

a.  o.  yoL  y.  B 


18 


THE  PASTORALS. 


Like  Varius  or  like  Cinna  ;  my  poor  Muse 
Is  but  a  goose  among  the  tuneful  swans.” 

Moeris  can  remember  a  scrap  or  two  of  his  master’s 
verses.  There  was  one  in  particular,  which  Lycidas 
had  heard  him  singing  one  moonlight  night,  and  would 
much  like  to  hear  again  ; — “  I  can  remember  the  tune 
myself,”  he  says,  “  but  I  have  forgotten  the  words.” 
Moeris  will  try.  The  compliment  to  Augustus  with 
which  the  strain  begins  sufficiently  marks  the  real 
poet  who  here  figures  as  Menalcas. 

“  Why,  Daphnis,  why  dost  watch  the  constellations 
Of  the  old  order,  now  the  new  is  bom  ? 

Lo  !  a  new  star  comes  forth  to  glad  the  nations, 

Star  of  the  Caesars,  filling  full  the  corn.”  * 

But  Moeris  cannot  remember  much  more.  They  must 
both  wait,  he  says,  until  his  master  comes  home  again. 
So  the  pair  walk  on  together  towards  Borne,  cheating 
the  long  journey  with  singing  as  they  go ;  and  thus 
closes  this  pretty  pastoral  dialogue,  the  graceful  ease 
of  which,  with  its  subdued  comedy,  it  would  be  im¬ 
possible  for  any  translator  to  render  adequately. 

Another  of  these  Eclogues  relates  the  capture  of 
Silenus,  one  of  the  old  rural  deities  of  very  jovial  re¬ 
putation,  by  two  young  shepherds,  while  he  lay  sleep¬ 
ing  off  the  effect  of  yesterday’s  debauch.  He  is  com- 

*  Probably  the  comet  which  appeared  after  Julius  Ckesar’s 
death,  and  which  the  poet  takes  to  announce  a  new  era  of 
peace  and  happiness  for  Rome.  The  English  reader  may  re¬ 
member  that  a  new  star  was  said  to  have  appeared  at  the  ac¬ 
cession  of  Charles  II.,  from  which  equally  happy  auguries  were 
drawn— and  were  equally  disappointed. 


THE  PASTORALS. 


19 


monly  represented — and  lie  was  ratlier  a  favourite 
subject  with  ancient  artists — as  a  corpulent  bald-headed 
old  man,  riding  upon  an  ass,  in  a  state  of  evident  in¬ 
ebriety,  carrying  a  capacious  leather  wine-bottle,  and 
led  and  followed  by  a  company  of  Nymphs  and 
Bacchanals.  He  had  the  reputation,  like  the  sea -god 
Proteus,  of  knowing  the  mysteries  of  nature  and  the 
secrets  of  the  future ;  and  there  was  a  current  story, 
upon  which  this  Pastoral  is  founded,  of  his  having 
been  caught  while  asleep,  like  him,  by  some  shep¬ 
herds  in  Phrygia,  and  carried  to  King  Midas,  to 
whom,  as  the  price  of  his  release,  he  answered  all  ques¬ 
tions  in  natural  philosophy  and  ancient  history — just 
as  Proteus  unfolded  to  Menelaus,  under  similar  com¬ 
pulsion,  the  secret  of  his  future  fate. 

The  Pastoral  into  which  Yirgil  introduces  this  story 
is  addressed  to  his  friend  Varus — a  man  evidently  of 
high  rank — and  seems  meant  as  an  apology  for  not 
complying  with  his  request  to  write  a  poem  on  his 
exploits. 

“  I  thought  to  sing  how  heroes  fought  and  bled, 

But  that  Apollo  pinched  my  ear,  and  said — 

‘  Shepherds,  friend  Tityrus,  I  would  have  you  know, 
Feed  their  sheep  high,  and  keep  their  verses  low.*  ” 

Then  he  goes  on  to  tell  his  story  : — 

“  Two  shepherd-youths,  the  story  runs,  one  day 
Came  on  the  cave  where  old  Silenus  ky; 

Filled  to  the  skin,  as  was  his  wont  to  be, 

With  last  night’s  wine,  and  sound  asleep  was  he ; 

The  garland  from  his  head  had  fallen  aside, 

And  his  round  bottle  hanging  near  they  spied. 


20 


THE  PASTORALS. 


Now  was  their  time — both  had  been  cheated  long 
By  the  sly  god  with  promise  of  a  song ; 

They  tied  him  fast — fit  bonds  his  garland  made — 

And  lo  !  a  fair  accomplice  comes  to  aid  : 

Loveliest  of  Naiad-nymphs,  and  merriest  too, 
iEglk  *  did  what  they  scarce  had  dared  to  do  ; 

Just  as  the  god  unclosed  his  sleepy  eyes, 

She  daubed  his  face  with  blood  of  mulberries. 

He  saw  their  joke,  and  laughed — ‘  Now  loose  me,  lad  ! 
Enough — you’ve  caught  me — tying  is  too  bad. 

A  song  you  want  ? — Here  goes.  For  iEglfe,  mind, 

I  warrant  me  I’ll  pay  her  out  in  kind. 

So  he  began.  The  listening  Fauns  drew  near, 

The  beasts  beat  time,  the  stout  oaks  danced  to  hear. 

So  joys  Parnassus  when  Apollo  sings — 

So  through  the  dancing  hills  the  lyre  of  Orpheus  rings.” 

Silenus’s  strain  is  a  poetical  lecture  on  natural  philo¬ 
sophy.  He  is  as  didactic  in  his  waking  soberness  as 
some  of  his  disciples  are  in  their  cups.  He  describes 
how  the  world  sprang  from  the  four  original  elements, 
and  narrates  the  old  fables  of  the  cosmogonists — the 
Deluge  of  Deucalion,  the  new  race  of  men  who  sprang 
from  the  stones  which  he  and  Pyrrha  cast  behind 
them,  the  golden  reign  of  Saturn,  the  theft  of  fire  by 
Prometheus,  and  a  long  series  of  other  legends,  with 
which  he  charms  his  listeners  until  the  falling  shadows 
warn  them  to  count  their  flocks,  and  the  evening-stai 
comes  out,  as  the  poet  phrases  it,  “  over  the  unwilling 
heights  of  Olympus  ” — loath  yet  to  lose  the  fascinating 
strain. 

Besides  this  Pastoral  addressed  to  Yarns,  there  are 
*  Anglicl,  “  Bright-eyes.” 


TEE  “ POLLIO 


21 


three  inscribed  to  other  friends :  one  to  Cornelius 
Gallus,  and  two  to  Caius  Asinius  Pollio,  who  was 
among  the  most  eminent  men  of  his  day  alike  as  a 
statesman,  an  orator,  and  a  man  of  letters,  and  at  that 
time  held  the  high  office  of  consul  at  Rome.  He  had 
been  the  friend  of  the  great  Julius,  as  he  was  after¬ 
wards  of  his  nephew  Octavianus  (Augustus),  and  was 
probably  the  person  who  preserved  or  restored  to  the 
poet  his  country  estate.  The  fourth  in  order  of  these 
poems,  commonly  known  as  the  “  Pollio,”  is  the  most 
celebrated  of  the  whole  series,  and  has  given  rise  to  a 
great  amount  of  speculation.  Its  exact  date  is  known 
from  the  record  of  Pollio’s  consulship — 40  before  the 
Christian  era.  Its  subject  is  the  expected  birth  of  a 
Child,  in  whom  the  golden  age  of  innocence  and  happi¬ 
ness  should  be  restored,  and  who  was  to  be  the  moral 
regenerator  of  the  world.  The  date  of  the  poem  itself, 
approaching  so  closely  the  great  Birth  at  Bethlehem — 
the  reference  to  the  prophecy  of  the  Cumaean  Sibyl, 
long  supposed  to  be  a  voice  from  heathendom  predic¬ 
tive  of  the  Jewish  Messiah — and  the  remarkable 
coincidence  of  the  metaphorical  terms  employed  by 
the  poet  with  the  prophetical  language  of  the  Old 
Testament,  have  led  many  to  the  pious  belief  that  the 
Roman  poet  did  but  put  into  shape  those  vague  ex 
pectations  of  a  Great  Deliverer  which  were  current  in 
his  day,  and-  which  were  to  have  a  higher  fulfilment 
than  he  knew.  The  “  Pollio  ”  may  be  familiar  to  many 
English  readers  who  are  unacquainted  with  the  original 
through  Pope’s  fine  imitation  of  it  in  his  poem  of 
u  The  Messiah,”  first  published  anonymously  in  the 


22 


THE  PASTORALS. 


1  Spectator.’*  But  as  the  Latin  Eclogue  itself  is  short, 
it  may  he  well  to  attempt  a  translation  of  it  her$ 
before  remarking  further  upon  its  meaning. 

<  Muses  of  Sicily,  lift  me  for  once 
To  higher  flight ;  our  humble  tamarisk  groves 
Delight  not  all ;  and  though  the  fields  and  woods 
Still  bound  my  song,  give  me  the  skill  to  make 
Fit  music  for  a  Roman  consul’s  ear. 

“  Comes  the  Last  Age,  of  which  the  Sibyl  sang — 

A  new-born  cycle  of  the  rolling  years  ; 

Justice  returns  to  earth,  the  rule  returns 

Of  good  King  Saturn  ; — lo  !  from  the  high  heavens 

Comes  a  new  seed  of  men.  Lucina  chaste, 

Speed  the  fair  infant’s  birth,  with  whom  shall  end 
Our  age  of  iron,  and  the  golden  prime 
Of  earth  return ;  thine  own  Apollo’s  reign 
In  him  begins  anew.  This  glorious  age 
Inaugurates,  0  Pollio,  with  thee  ; 

Thy  consulship  shall  date  the  happy  months  ; 

Under  thine  auspices  the  Child  shall  purge 
Our  guilt- stains  out,  and  free  the  land  from  dread. 

He  with  the  gods  and  heroes  like  the  gods 
Shall  hold  familiar  converse,  and  shall  rule 
With  his  great  father’s  spirit  the  peaceful  world. 

For  thee,  0  Child,  the  earth  untilled  shall  pour 
Her  early  gifts, — the  winding  ivy’s  wreath, 

Smiling  acanthus,  and  all  flowers  that  blow. 

She-goats  undriven  shall  bring  full  udders  home, 

The  herds  no  longer  fear  the  lion’s  spring  ; 

The  ground  beneath  shall  cradle  thee  in  flowers, 

The  venomed  snake  shall  die,  the  poisonous  herb 
Perish  from  out  thy  path,  and  leave  the  almond  there. 

“  But  when  with  growing  years  the  Child  shall  learn 
The  old  heroic  glories  of  his  race, 


*  Ko.  378. 


THE  “POLLTO." 


23 


And  know  wliat  Honour  means  :  then  shall  the  plains 
Glow  with  the  yellow  harvest  silently, 

The  grape  hang  blushing  from  the  tangled  brier, 

And  the  rough  oak  drip  honey  like  a  dew. 

Yet  shall  some  evil  leaven  of  the  old  strain 
Lurk  still  unpurged ;  still  men  shall  tempt  the  deep 
With  restless  oar,  gird  cities  with  new  walls, 

And  cleave  the  soil  with  ploughshares ;  yet  again 
Another  Argo  bear  her  hero-crew, 

Another  Tiphys  steer  :  still  wars  shall  be, 

A  new  Achilles  for  a  second  Troy. 

“  So,  when  the  years  shall  seal  thy  manhood’s  strength, 
The  busy  merchant  shall  forsake  the  seas — 

Barter  there  shall  not  need ;  the  soil  shall  bear 
For  all  men’s  use  all  products  of  all  climes. 

The  glebe  shall  need  no  harrow,  nor  the  vine 
The  searching  knife,  the  oxen  bear  no  yoke  ; 

The  wool  no  longer  shall  be  schooled  to  lie, 

Dyed  in  false  hues  ;  but,  colouring  as  he  feeds, 

The  ram  himself  in  the  rich  pasture-lands 
Shall  wear  a  fleece  now  purple  and  now  gold, 

And  the  lambs  grow  in  scarlet.  So  the  Fates 
Who  know  not  change  have  bid  their  spindles  run, 

And  weave  for  this  blest  age  the  web  of  doom. 

“  Come,  claim  thine  honours,  for  the  time  draws  nigh, 
Babe  of  immortal  race,  the  wondrous  seed  of  Jove  ! 

Lo,  at  thy  coming  how  the  starry  spheres 
Are  moved  to  trembling,  and  the  earth  below, 

And  widespread  seas,  and  the  blue  vault  of  heaven  ! 
How  all  things  joy  to  greet  the  rising  Age  ! 

If  but  my  span  of  life  be  stretched  to  see 
Thy  birth,  and  breath  remain  to  sing  thy  praise, 

Not  Thracian  Orpheus  should  o’ermatch  my  strain, 

Nor  Linus, — though  each  parent  helped  the  son, 

Phoebus  Apollo  and  the  Muse  of  Song : 

Though  in  Arcadia  Pan  my  rival  stood, 


THE  PASTORALS. 


24 

His  own  Arcadia  should  pronounce  for  me. 

How  soon,  fair  infant,  shall  thy  first  smile  greet 
Thy  happy  mother,  when  the  slow  months  crown 
The  heart-sick  hopes  that  waited  for  thy  birth  ? 

Smile  then,  O  Babe  !  so  shall  she  smile  on  thee  ; 

The  child  on  whom  no  parent’s  smile  hath  beamed, 

No  god  shall  entertain,  nor  goddess  love.” 

It  would  be  out  of  place  here  to  discuss  the  various 
conjectures  of  the  learned  as  to  who  the  Child  was,  to 
whose  birth  the  poet  thus  looks  forward.  Whether  it 
was  a  son  of  the  Consul  Pollio  himself,  who  died  in 
his  infancy;  or  the  expected  offspring  of  Augustus’s 
marriage  with  Scribonia,  which  was,  after  all,  a  daugh¬ 
ter— Julia — whose  profligate  life  and  unhappy  death 
were  a  sad  contradiction  of  Virgil’s  anticipations  ;  or  a 
child  of  Octavia,  sister  of  Augustus; — which  of  these 
it  was,  or  whether  it  was  any  one  of  them,  neither 
ancient  nor  modern  commentators  have  been  able  to 
decide.  “  It  is  not  certain,”  says  Mr  Conington,  “  that 
the  child  ever  was  born  ;  it  is  certain  that,  if  born,  he 
did  not  become  the  regenerator  of  his  time.”  It  is 
possible,  too,  that  the  whole  form  of  the  poem  may 
be  strictly  imaginary — that  the  child  had  been  born 
already,  long  ago,  and  that  it  was  no  other  than 
Octavianus  Caesar — and  that  Virgil  does  but  use  here 
the  licence  of  poetry  to  express  his  hopes  of  a  golden 
age  that  might  follow  the  peace  of  Brundusium.  And 
as  to  how  far  this  very  remarkable  poem  may  or  may 
not  be  regarded  as  one  of  what  Archbishop  Trench 
has  called  “  the  unconscious  prophecies  of  heathen¬ 
dom,”  would  be  to  open  a  field  of  inquiry  of  the 


THE  “POLLIO." 


25 


highest  interest  indeed,  but  far  too  wide  for  these 
pages.  Yet  it  cannot  be  entirely  passed  over. 

The  Sibylline  oracles,  to  which  Virgil  alludes  in  his 
opening  lines,  whatever  their  original  form,  were  so 
garbled  and  interpolated,  both  in  Christian  and  pre- 
Christian  times,  that  it  is  impossible  now  to  know 
what  they  did  or  did  not  contain.  But  they  were 
recognised,  in  the  early  Church  —  by  the  Emperor 
Constantine,  who  is  said  to  have  attributed  his  own 
conversion  in  great  part  to  their  study,  and  by  St 
Augustine,  amongst  others — as  containing  distinct  pro 
pliecies  of  the  Messiah.  The  recognition  of  the  Roman 
Sibyl  or  Sibyls  as  bearing  their  testimony  to  the  truth 
of  Christianity  is  still  familiar  to  us  in  the  ancient 
hymn,  “  Dies  Ira3,” — so  often  translated — 

“Teste  David  cum  Sibylla 

and  in  an  old  Latin  mystery-play  of  the  eleventh 
century,  when  the  witnesses  are  summoned  to  give 
evidence  as  to  the  Nativity,  there  appear  among  them, 
in  company  with  the  Hebrew  prophets,  Yirgil  and 
the  Sibyl,  who  both  join  in  a  general  “  Benedicanms 
Domino ”  at  the  end.  St  Augustine  quotes  twenty- 
seven  Latin  verses  (which,  however,  seem  very  frag¬ 
mentary  and  unconnected)  as  actual  utterances  of  the 
Sibyl  of  Erythrae,  which  contain  prophecies,  more  or 
less  clear,  of  the  great  Advent.  The  original,  he  says, 
was  in  Greek,  and  the  initial  letters  of  each  verse 
formed  a  sentence,  “Jesus  Christ  the  Son  of  God  the 
Saviour.”*  Whatever  truth  there  may  be  in  any 

*  IH20T2  XPEI2T02  ©EOT  TIQ2  2HTHP.  He  also  quotes 


20 


TIIE  PASTORALS. 


special  predictions  ol  this  nature  as  existing  in  the 
heathen  world,  it  is  at  least  certain  that  there  pre¬ 
vailed  very  largely,  about  the  date  of  the  Christian  era, 
a  vague  expectation  of  some  personal  advent  which 
should  in  some  way  regenerate  society. 

The  new  “cycle  of  centuries,”  which  the  poet  sup¬ 
poses  to  begin  with  the  birth  of  the  Child,  refers  to 
the  doctrine  held  by  Plato  and  his  disciples  (possibly 
of  Etruscan  origin)  of  an  “Annus  Magnus,”  or  Great 
Year.  It  was  believed  that  there  were  certain  recur¬ 
ring  periods  at  long  intervals,  in  which  the  history  of 
the  world  repeated  itself.*  A  curious  story  in  illus¬ 
tration  of  this  belief  is  told  by  Plutarch  in  his  life  of 
Sulla. 

“  While  the  horizon  was  clear  and  cloudless,  there  was 
heard  suddenly  the  sound  of  a  trumpet,  shrill,  prolonged, 
and  as  it  were  wailing,  so  that  all  men  were  startled  and 
awed  by  its  loudness.  The  Etruscan  soothsayers  declared 
that  it  foreboded  the  coming  of  a  new  generation  and  the 
revolution  of  the  world.  For  that  there  were  eight  genera¬ 
tions  of  man  in  all,  differing  from  each  other  in  habits  and 
ways  of  life,  and  each  had  its  allotted  space  of  time,  when 
heaven  brought  round  again  the  recurrence  of  the  Great 
Year,  and  that  when  the  end  of  one  and  the  rise  of  another 
was  at  hand,  some  wondrous  sign  appeared  in  earth  or 
heaven.” — Plutarch.  Sulla,  c.  7. 

Enough  has  perhaps  been,  said  to  give  some  idea  of 
the  genius  and  character  of  Virgil’s  pastoral  poetry. 

other  “Sibylline”  verses  from  the  Greek  of  Lactantius,  refer¬ 
ring  to  the  crucifixion. — De  Civ.  Dei,  xviii.  23. 

*  The  duration  is  variously  estimated — from  2489  to  18,000 
years.  See  Conington’s  note. 


TllE  PASTOR  A  LS. 


27 


It  laid  the  foundation  of  a  taste  which  was  long  pre¬ 
valent  in  European  literature,  but  which  may  be  said 
to  have  now  become  obsolete.  English  poets  were  at 
one  time  strongly  imbued  with  it.  Spenser,  Milton, 
Drayton,  Pope,  and  Ambrose  Phillips, — the  last  per¬ 
haps  the  most  successfid, — were  all  m)re  or  less 
imitators  of  Virgil  in  this  line  of  poetry.  But  it 
would  seem  to  require  a  more  than  ordinary  revolution 
in  literature  ever  to  bring  such  a  style  into  popularity 
again. 


THE  GEORGICS. 


The  Georgies  of  Virgil,  like  his  Pastorals,  are  a 
direct  and  confessed  imitation  from  Greek  originals. 
The  poem  of  Hesiod — “Works  and  Days” — which 
has  come  down  to  us,  though  apparently  in  an  incom¬ 
plete  form,  gives  a  mythological  sketch  of  the  early 
history  of  the  world,  with  its  five  ages  of  the  human 
race — the  gold,  the  silver,  the  brazen,  “  the  age  of 
heroes,”  and  the  present — which  last,  with  the  cyni¬ 
cism  or  melancholy  which  seems  so  inseparable  from 
the  poetic  temperament,  Hesiod  looks  upon  as  hope¬ 
lessly  degenerate,  with  the  prospect  of  something  even 
worse  to  come.  To  this  traditional  cosmogony  the 
Greek  poet  adds  directions  as  to  farm  operations  in 
their  several  seasons,  and  notes  of  lucky  and  unlucky 
days.  Virgi]  has  borrowed  from  him  largely  on  these 
two  latter  subjects.  He  is  also  considerably  indebted 
to  other  Greek  writers  less  known  to  us,  and  in  whose 
case,  therefore,  his  obligations  are  not  so  readily  traced. 

From  his  own  countryman  and  immediate  prede¬ 
cessor,  Lucretius,  the  author  of  the  great  didactic  poem 


THE  GEORG  ICS. 


29 


“  On  tlie  Nature  of  Things,”  he  drew  quite  as  largely, 
but  in  another  field.  Virgil  is  said  to  have  been  born 
on  the  very  day  of  Lucretius’s  death,  and  he  had  an 
intense  admiration  for  both  his  diction  and  his  philo¬ 
sophy.  There  are  passages  in  Virgil’s  writings  which 
would  seem  to  show  that  his  greatest  ambition  would 
have  been  to  have  sung,  like  Lucretius,  of  the  secrets 
of  nature,  rather  than  either  of  heroic  legends  or  of 
country  life.  And  here  and  there,  throughout  these 
books  of  Georgies,  wherever  he  has  the  opportunity, 
he  forgets  the  farmer  in  the  natural  philosopher,  and 
breaks  off  in  the  midst  of  some  practical  precepts  to 
indulge  in  speculations  on  the  hidden  causes  of  na¬ 
ture’s  operations,  which  would  have  sorely  puzzled  a 
Roman  country  gentleman  or  his  bailiff,  if  we  could 
suppose  that  the  work  was  really  composed  with  a 
view  to  their  practical  instruction. 

He  addresses  his  poem  to  his  noble  patron  Maecenas. 
And  amongst  the  long  list  of  divine  powers  whom, 
as  the  guardians  of  fields  and  flocks,  he  invokes  to 
aid  his  song,  he  introduces  the  present  Autocrat  of 
Rome. 

"  Thou,  Caesar,  chief,  where’er  thy  choice  ordain, 

To  fix  ’mid  gods  thy  yet  unchosen  reign — 

Wilt  thou  o’er  cities  stretch  thy  guardian  sway, 

While  earth  and  all  her  realms  thy  nod  obey  ? 

The  world’s  vast  orb  shall  own  tliy  genial  power, 
Giver  of  fruits,  fair  sun,  and  favouring  shower  ; 

Before  thy  altar  grateful  nations  bow, 

And  with  maternal  myrtle  wreathe  thy  brow. 

O’er  boundless  ocean  shall  thy  power  prevail, 

Thee  her  sole  lord  the  world  of  waters  hail  1 


30 


THE  GEORGICS. 


Rule,  where  the  sea  remotest  Thule  laves, 

While  Tethys  dowers  thy  bride  with  all  her  waves  ? 
Wilt  thou  ’mid  Scorpius  and  the  Virgin  rise, 

And,  a  new  star,  illume  thy  native  skies  ? 

Scorpius,  e’en  now,  each  shrinking  claw  confines, 

And  more  than  half  his  heaven  to  thee  resigns. 
Where’er  thy  reign  (for  not  if  hell  invite 
To  wield  the  sceptre  of  eternal  night, 

Ne’er  would  such  lust  of  dire  dominion  move 
Thee,  Caesar,  to  resign  the  realm  of  Jove  : 

Though  vaunting  Greece  extol  th’  Elysian  plain, 
Whence  weeping  Ceres  wooes  her  child  in  vain) 
Breathe  favouring  gales,  my  course  propitious  guide, 
O’er  the  rude  swain’s  uncertain  path  preside ; 

Now,  now  invoked,  assert  thy  heavenly  birth, 

And  learn  to  hear  our  prayers,  a  god  on  earth.” 

— Sothebt. 

The  first  book  is  devoted  to  the  raising  of  corn  croys. 
The  farmer  is  recommended  to  plough  early,  to  plough 
deep,  and  to  plough  four  times  over — advice  in  the 
principles  of  which  modern  farmers  would  cordially 
agree.  The  poet  also  recommends  fallows  at  least  every 
other  season,  and  not  to  take  two  corn  crops  in  succes¬ 
sive  years.  The  Roman  agriculturist  had  his  pests  of 
the  farm,  and  complained  of  them  as  loudly  as  his 
modern  fellows.  The  geese,  and  the  cranes,  and  the 
mice,  and  the  small  birds,  vexed  him  all  in  turn ;  and 
if  he  knew  nothing  of  that  distinctly  English  torment, 
the  couch-grass, — squitch,'  twitch,  or  quitch,  as  it  is 
variously  termed,  which  is  said  to  spring  up  under  the 
national  footstep  wdierever  it  goes,  whether  at  the 
Cape  or  in  Australia, — he  had  indigenous  weeds  of  his 
own  which  gave  him  equal  trouble  to  get  rid  of.  The 


THE  GEORGIUS. 


31 


Roman  plough  seems  to  have  been  a  cumbrous  wooden 
instrument,  which  would  break  the  heart  alike  of  man 
and  horse  in  these  days ;  and  its  very  elaborate  de¬ 
scription,  in  spite  of  the  polished  language  of  the 
poet,  would  shock  one  of  our  modern  implement- 
manufacturers.  He  gives  a  few  hints  as  to  lucky  and 
unlucky  days,  and  fuller  directions  for  prognosticating 
the  weather  from  the  various  signs  to  be  observed  in 
the  sky,  and  in  the  behaviour  of  the  animal  world  ; 
and  he  closes  this  first  division  of  his  poem,  as  he 
began  it,  with  an  apostrophe  to  Caesar  as  the  hope  of 
Rome  and  Italy.  It  is  one  of  the  finest  passages 
in  the  Georgies,  and  will  bear  translation  as  well 
as  most.  Dryden’s  version  is  spirited  enough,  and 
though  diffuse,  presents  the  sense  fairly  to  an  English 
ear : — 

“Ye  home-born  deities,  of  mortal  birth  ! 

Thou,  father  Romulus,  and  mother  Earth, 

Goddess  unmoved  !  whose  guardian  arms  extend 
O’er  Tuscan  Tiber’s  course,  and  Roman  towers  defend; 
With  youthful  Caesar  your  joint  powers  engage, 

Nor  hinder  him  to  save  the  sinking  age. 

0  !  let  the  blood  already  spilt  atone 
For  the  past  crimes  of  curst  Laomedon  ! 

Heaven  wants  thee  there ;  and  long  the  gods,  we  know, 
Have  grudged  thee,  Caesar,  to  the  world  below; 

Where  fraud  and  rapine  right  and  wrong  confound ; 
Where  impious  arms  from  every  part  resound, 

And  monstrous  crimes  in  every  shape  are  crowned. 

The  peaceful  peasant  to  the  wars  is  prest  • 

The  fields  lie  fallow  in  inglorious  rest  : 

The  plain  no  pasture  to  the  fiock  affords, 

The  crooked  scythes  are  straightened  into  swords : 


32 


THE  GEORG  ICS. 


And  there  Euphrates  her  soft  offspring  arms, 

And  here  the  Rhine  rebellows  with  alarms  ; 

The  neighbouring  cities  range  on  several  sides, 
Perfidious  Mars  long-plighted  leagues  divides, 

And  o’er  the  wasted  world  in  triumph  rides. 

So  four  fierce  coursers,  starting  to  the  race, 

Scour  through  the  plain,  and  lengthen  every  pace  : 

Nor  reins,  nor  curbs,  nor  threat’ning  cries  they  fear, 

But  force  along  the  trembling  charioteer.” 

The  Second  Georgic  treats  of  the  orchard  and  the 
vineyard,  but  especially  of  the  latter.  The  apple,  the 
pear,  the  olive,  all  receive  due  notice  from  the  poet ; 
but  upon  the  culture  of  the  vine  he  dwells  with  a 
hearty  enthusiasm,  and  his  precepts  have  a  more  prac¬ 
tical  air  than  those  which  he  gives  out  upon  other 
branches  of  cultivation.  The  soil,  the  site,  the  best 
hinds  to  choose,  the  different  modes  of  propagation, 
are  all  discussed  with  considerable  minuteness.  It 
would  seem  that  in  those  earlier  times,  as  now,  the 
vintage  had  a  more  poetical  aspect  than  even  the 
harvest-field.  The  beauty  of  the  crop,  the  merriment 
of  the  gatherers,  the  genial  effects  of  the  grape  when  it 
has  gone  through  the  usual  process  of  conversion,  gave, 
as  is  still  the  case  in  all  wine -producing  countries, 
a  holiday  character  to  the  whole  course  of  cultivation. 
All  other  important  crops  contribute  in  some  way  to 
supply  the  actual  needs  of  life  :  the  vine  alone  repre¬ 
sents  distinctly  its  enjoyments.  And  when,  at  the 
beginning  of  the  book,  the  poet  invokes  the  god  of 
\v  ine  to  inspire  his  song,  he  does  it  with  a  thorough 
heartiness  of  welcome  which  assures  us  that,  however 
temperate  his  own  habits  might  be,  he  had  not 


THE  GEORGICS. 


33 


adopted  any  vow  of  total  abstinence.  Some  of  the 
ancient  critics  are  said  to  have  detected  in  Homer  a 
taste  for  joviality,  because  in  his  verse  he  had  always 
a  kindly  word  for  “  the  dark  red  wine  :  ”  they  might 
have  said  the  same  of  the  writer  of  the  Georgies.  It 
is  a  cordial  invitation  which  he  gives  to  the  jolly  god : — 

“  Come,  Father  Bacchus,  come  !  thy  bounty  fills 
All  things  around ;  for  thee  the  autumn  hills, 

Heavy  with  fruit,  blush  through  their  greenery ; 

In  the  full  vats  the  vintage  foams  for  thee  : 

Come,  Father  Bacchus,  come  !  nor  yet  refuse 
To  doff  thy  buskins,  and  with  noble  juice 
To  stain  thy  limbs,  and  tread  the  grapes  with  me.” 

But  although  the  poet  makes  the  labours  of  the 
gardener  and  the  vine-dresser  the  burden  of  his  song, 
his  most  brilliant  passages,  and  those  best  known  and 
remembered,  are  the  frequent  digressions  in  which  he 
breaks  away  from  the  lower  ground  of  horticultural 
details  into  a  higher  poetical  atmosphere.  One  of  the 
most  beautiful  is  his  apostrophe  to  Italy  in  this  second 
book : — 

“  Colchian  bulls  with  fiery  nostrils  never  turned  Italian  field, 
Seed  of  hydra’s  teeth  ne’er  sprang  in  bristling  crop  of  spear 
and  shield ; 

But  thy  slopes  with  heavy  corn-stalks  and  the  Massic  vine 
are  clad, 

There  the  olive-groves  are  greenest,  and  the  full-fed  herds 
are  glad. ' 

In  thy  plains  is  bred  the  war-horse,  tossing  high  its  crest 
of  pride  ; 

Milk-white  herds,  0  fair  Clitumnus,  bathe  them  in  thy 
sacred  tide — 

A.  c.  vol.  v. 


0 


34 


THE  GEORG  ICS. 


Mighty  hulls  to  crown  the  altars,  or  to  draw  the  conqueror^ 
car 

Up  the  Sacred  Way  in  triumph  when  he  rideth  from  the  war 

Here  the  spring  is  longest,  summer  borrows  months  be- 
yond  her  own ; 

Twice  the  teeming  flocks  are  fruitful,  twice  the  laden  or¬ 
chards  groan. 

In  thy  plains  no  tigers  wander,  nor  the  lions  nurse  their 
young ; 

Evil  root  of  treacherous  poison  doth  no  wretched  gatherer 
wrong, 

Never  serpent  rears  its  crest,  or  drags  its  monstrous  coils 
along. 

Lo  !  where  rise  thy  noble  cities,  giant  works  of  men  of  old, 

Towns  on  beetling  crags  piled  heavenward  by  the  hands  of 
builders  bold — 

Antique  towers  round  whose  foundations  still  the  grand  old 
rivers  glide, 

And  the  double  sea  that  girds  thee  like  a  fence  on  either  side. 
•  •••«• 

Such  the  land  which  sent  to  battle  Marsian  footmen  stout 
and  good, 

Sabine  youth,  and  Volscian  spearmen,  and  Liguria’s  hardy 
brood ; 

Hence  have  sprung  our  Decii,  Marii,  mighty  names  which 
all  men  bless, 

Great  Cainillus,  kinsmen  Scipios,  sternest  men  in  battle’s 
press  ! 

Hence  hast  thou  too  sprung,  great  Ccesar,  whom  the  farth¬ 
est  East  doth  fear, 

So  that  Mede  nor  swarthy  Indian  to  our  Roman  lines  come 
near ! 

Hail,  thou  fair  and  fruitful  mother,  land  of  ancient  Saturn, 
hail ! 

Rich  in  crops  and  rich  in  heroes  !  thus  I  dare  to  wake  the 
talc 


THE  OEORGICS. 


35 


Of  thine  ancient  laud  and  honour,  opening  founts  that 
slumbered  long, 

Rolling  through  our  Roman  towns  the  echoes  of  old 
Hesiod’s  song.”  * 

The  Third  Georgic  treats  of  the  herd  and  the  stud. 
The  poet’s  knowledge  on  these  points  must  be 
strongly  suspected  of  being  but  second-hand — rather 
the  result  of  having  studied  some  of  the  Roman 
“  Books  of  the  Farm,”  than  the  experience  of  a  prac¬ 
tical  stock-breeder.  Such  a  work  was  Varro’s  ‘On 
Rural  Affairs,’  which  Yirgil  evidently  followed  as  an 
authority.  From  that  source  he  drew,  amongst  other 
precepts,  the  points  of  a  good  cow,  which  he  lays 
down  in  this  formula  : — 

“  An  ugly  head,  a  well-fleshed  neck, 

Deep  dewlaps  falling  from  the  chin, 

Long  in  the  flank,  broad  in  the  foot, 

Rough  hairy  ears,  and  horns  bent  in.” 

Such  an  animal  would  hardly  win  a  prize  from  our 
modern  judges  of  stock.  But  Yirgil,  be  it  remem¬ 
bered,  is  giving  instructions  for  selection  with  an  eye 
to  breeding  purposes  exclusively;  and  an  Italian  cow 
of  the  present  day  would  not  be  considered  by  us  a 
handsome  animal.  Besides,  the  object  of  the  Roman 
breeder  was  to  obtain  animals  which  would  be  “  strong 
to  labour,” — good  beasts  under  the  yoke  ;  not  such  as 
would  lay  on  the  greatest  weight  of  flesh  at  the  least 

*  This  fine  passage — much  of  the  beauty  of  which  is  necessarily 
lost  in  this  attempt  at  a  translation — has  been  often  imitated, 
not  least  successfully  by  Thomson,  in  the  eulogy  upon  his  nativi 
island  with  which  he  begins  the  fifth  book  of  his  poem  on 

“  Liberty.” 


J6 


THE  GEOROICS. 


possible  cost,  for  the  purposes  of  the  butcher.  Hia 
points  of  a  good  horse  are  entirely  different,  and 
approach  more  nearly  our  own  ideal — “  Fine  in  the 
head,  short  in  the  barrel,  broad  on  the  back,  full  in 
the  chest.”  Bay  and  dapple-grey  he  chooses  for 
colour  ;  white  and  chestnut  he  considers  the  worst, 
lie  had  not  reached  the  more  catholic  philosophy  of 
the  modern  horse-dealer,  that  “  no  good  horse  was  ever 
yet  of  a  bad  colour.” 

The  nature  of  the  subject  in  this  Third  Georgic  allows 
the  poet  to  indulge  even  more  frequently  in  digres¬ 
sions.  He  gives  a  picture  of  pastoral  life  under  the 
hot  suns  of  Numidia,  where  the  herdsman  or  shepherd 
drives  his  charge  from  pasture  to  pasture,  carrying 
with  him  all  he  wants,  like  a  Boman  soldier  in  a 
campaign  ;  and  again  of  his  winter  life  in  some  vague 
northern  region  which  he  calls  by  the  general  name  of 
Scythia,  but  where  they  seem  to  have  drunk  (in  imita¬ 
tion  of  wine,  as  the  southern  poet  compassionately 
phrases  it)  some  kind  of  beer  or  cider.  But  the  most 
remarkable  of  these  passages  is  that  which  closes  the 
book,  and  describes  the  ravages  of  some  terrible 
pestilence  which,  beginning  with  the  flocks  and  herds, 
extended  at  last  to  the  wild  beasts  and  to  the  birds, 
and  even  to  the  fish.  There  is  no  historical  account  of 
such  a  visitation  in  Italy;  and  it  is  very  probable  that 
Virgil  used  his  licence  as  a  poet  to  embellish  with 
imaginary  details  some  ordinary  epidemic,  in  order  to 
present  to  his  readers  a  companion  picture  to  that  of 
the  great  plague  at  Athens,  which  had  been  so  power¬ 
fully  described  by  his  favourite  model  Lucretius. 


THE  GEORG  ICS. 


37 


There  is  no  need  to  say  very  much  about  the 
Fourth  and  last  of  the  Georgies,  which  treats  exclu¬ 
sively  of  bees.  These  little  creatures  were  evidently 
of  more  importance  in  the  rural  economy  of  the 
Romans  than  they  commonly  are  in  ours.  Before 
the  discovery  of  the  sugar-cane,  the  sweetening  pro¬ 
perties  of  honey  would  be  much  more  valuable  than 
they  are  now  ;  and  the  inhabitants  of  a  warm  climate 
like  Italy  make  more  use  of  saccharine  matter,  as  an 
article  of  ordinary  food,  than  we  do.  But  the  habits 
and  natural  history  of  the  insect  commonwealth  to 
which  Virgil  devotes  this  book  are  so  curious  and  so 
little  understood,  that  they  would  only  find  an  appro¬ 
priate  place  in  a  special  treatise.  There  appears  to 
have  been  no  want  of  interest  or  research  upon  the 
subject  among  the  ancients,  for  the  Greek  philosopher 
Aristomachus  is  said  to  have  devoted  fifty-eight  years 
to  this  single  branch  of  zoology.  Virgil  certainly 
would  not  help  us  much ’in  a  scientific  point  of  view. 
The  bees  were  mysteries  to  him,  even  more  than  to 
us ;  and,  marvellous  as  they  are,  he  made  them  more 
marvellous  still.  He  was  quite  aware  that  they  had 
some  peculiarities  in  the  matter  of  sex ;  but  he  makes 
the  queen  bee,  who  is  really  the  mother  of  the  swarm, 
a  king,  and  imagines  that  they  pick  up  their  young 
ones  from  the  leaves  and  flowers.  He  gives  also — 
and  with  an  air  of  as  much  practical  reality  as  can  be 
expected  from  a  poet — minute  instructions  for  obtaining 
a  stock  of  bees  at  once  from  the  carcass  of  a  steer, 
beaten  and  crushed  into  a  mass,  and  excluded  from 
air :  evidently  a  misapplication  of  what  is  said  to  be  a 


38 


THE  GE0RG1CS. 


fact  in  natural  history,  that  bees  will  take  up  their 
quarters  occasionally  in  the  dead  body  of  an  animal. 
The  honey  he  considers  to  he  some  kind  of  dew  that 
falls  from  heaven.  One  rule  which  he  gives  for  pre¬ 
venting  the  young  swarms  from  rising  at  undue  times 
has  staggered  some  inexperienced  commentators.  He 
advises  the  owner  to  pick  out  the  queen  bees,  and 
clip  their  wings.  Such  a  recipe  certainly  suggests  at 
first  sight  the  old  preliminary  caution — “First  catch 
your  bee  :  ”  but  an  experienced  bee-keeper  will  find  no 
difficulty  in  performing  such  an  operation,  if  needful.* 

The  fine  episode  with  which  this  book  concludes, 
in  which  the  poet  relates  the  legend  of  Orpheus  and 
Eurydice,  is  more  attractive  than  all  his  discourse  upon 
bee-keeping. 

The  Georgies  have  generally  been  considered  as 
the  poet’s  most  complete  work,  and  it  is  here,  un¬ 
doubtedly,  that  he  shows  us  most  of  himself, — of  his 
habits,  his  tastes,  and  his  religious  opinions.  They  are 
poetical  essays  on  the  dignity  of  labour.  Warlike  glory 
was  the  popular  theme  of  the  day;  but  Yirgil  detests 
war,  and  he  seeks  to  enthrone  labour  in  its  place.  He 
looks  upon  tillage  as,  in  some  sort,  a  war  in  itself,  but 
of  a  nobler  kind — “  a  holy  war  of  men  against  the 
earth,”  as  a  French  writer  expresses  it.t  He  com¬ 
pares  its  details,  in  more  than  one  passage,  with  those 

*  "When  we  find,  in  a  modern  manual,  even  directions  “How 
to  tame  vicious  bees,”  it  is  hard  to  say  what  a  master  of  bee- 
craft  can  not  do.  — See  Mr  Pettigrew’s  clever  and  amusing 
‘  Handy  Book.’ 

+  Jules  Legris. 


THE  GEORGICS. 


39 


of  the  camp  and  of  the  hattle-field.  But  besides  this, 
the  Georgies  contain  what  seems  to  be  a  protest  against 
the  fashionable  atheism  of  his  age.  He  sets  the  wor¬ 
ship  of  the  gods  in  the  first  place  of  all. 

“  First,  pay  all  reverence  to  the  Powers  of  heaven 

is  his  instruction  to  his  pupils — “  From  Jove  all  things 
begin.”  His  motto  might  have  been  that  which  the 
Benedictines  in  their  purer  days  adopted — “  Ora  et 
labora” — “Pray  and  work.”  It  has  been  commonly 
said  that  Virgil  was  in  his  creed  an  Epicurean ;  that 
he  looked  upon  the  gods  as  beings  who,  in  our  English 
poet’s  words, 

“Lie  beside  their  nectar,  careless  of  mankind.” 

But  a  study  of  his  writings  will  go  far  to  show  that 
such  is  not  the  case ;  that  whatever  the  distinct 
articles  of  his  creed  may  have  been,  he  had  a  deep 
individual  sense  of  the  personal  existence  of  great 
powers  which  ruled  the  affairs  of  men ;  that  Nature 
was  not  to  him,  as  to  Lucretius,  a  mere  shrine  of  hidden 
mysteries,  unlocked  to  the  Epicurean  alone,  but  that 
he  had  an  eye  and  a  heart  for  all  its  riches  and 
beauties,  as  the  “  skirts  ”  of  a  divine  glory.  In  all 
his  verse  this  feeling  shows  itself,  but  nowhere  more 
plainly  than  in  the  Georgies. 

It  is  said  that  this  particular  work  was  undertaken 
by  the  desire  of  Maecenas,  with  the  hope  of  turning  the 
minds  of  the  veteran  soldiers,  to  whom  grants  of  land 
had  been  made  in  return  for  their  services,  to  a  more 
peaceful  ambition  in  the  quiet  cultivation  of  tlieii 


40 


THE  OEOROICS . 


farms.  Whether  it  had  that  result  may  well  he 
doubted :  the  discharged  soldier,  however  heartily  he 
might  take  to  farming,  would  scarcely  go  to  a  poet  as 
his  instructor.  The  practical  influence  of  these  treatises 
in  any  way  is  equally  doubtful.  “  It  would  he  absurd 
to  suppose,”  says  Dean  Merivale,  “  that  Virgil’s  verses 
induced  any  Roman  to  put  his  hand  to  the  plough, 
or  take  from  his  bailiff  the  management  of  his  own 
estates ;  hut  they  served  undoubtedly  to  revive  some 
of  the  simple  tastes  and  sentiments  of  the  olden  time, 
and  perpetuated,  amid  the  vices  and  corruptions  of  the 
Empire,  a  pure  stream  of  sober  and  innocent  enjoy¬ 
ment.”  * 


*  ‘  Fall  of  Rome,’ iv.  576. 


THE  A E  N  E  I  D. 


CHAPTEE  I. 

THE  SHIPWRECK  ON  THE  COAST  OF  CARTHAGE. 

The  H£neid,  like  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey,  is  a  Tale  of 
Troy.  The  fascination  of  that  remarkable  cycle  of 
legend  had  not  weakened  after  the  lapse  of  ten 
centuries.  Yirgil  not  only  set  himself  deliberately  to 
imitate  Homer  in  his  method  of  poetical  treatment, 
but  he  goes  to  him  for  his  subject.  He  even  makes 
his  own  poem,  in  some  sort,  a  sequel  to  the  Iliad — at 
least  as  much  so  as  the  Odyssey  is.  As  the  subject 
of  this  latter  poem  is  the  wanderings  and  final 
establishment  in  his  native  country  of  the  Greek  hero 
Ulysses  after  victory,  so  Yirgil  gives  us  the  story  of 
the  escape  of  a  Trojan  hero  from  the  ruin  of  his  city, 
and  the  perils  by  land  and  sea  which  he  encountered, 
until  his  final  settlement  in  the  distant  west,  in  the 
land  which  the  gods  had  promised  him.  AEneas, 
like  Ulysses,  is  described  as  a  man  of  many  woes 
and  sufferings ;  and  like  him,  though  he  has  the 
justice  and  the  deliberate  counsels  of  heaven  all  on 
hip  side,  the  enmity  of  one  angry  deity  is  permitted 


42 


THE  JENEID. 


to  vex  and  thwart  him  for  many  long  years.  This 
/Eneas — reputed  son  of  the  goddess  Yenus  "by  a 
mortal  husband,  Anchises— had  played  no  unimport¬ 
ant  part  in  the  defence  of  Troy.  Had  we  not  been 
told  that  King  Priam  had  no  less  than  fifty  sons,  it 
might  have  been  said  that  he  stood  very  near  the 
throne.  Por  he  was  the  representative  of  the  younger 
branch  of  the  house  of  Dardanus — the  family  of 
Assaracus — as  Priam  was  of  the  elder  branch,  that  of 
Ilus A  A  sort  of  half-mysterious  glory  is  cast  round 
him  in  the  Iliad.  He  is  there  addressed  as  “coun¬ 
sellor  of  the  Trojans;”  they  honoured  him,  we  are 
told,  “equally  with  the  godlike  Hector;”  and  Hep- 
tune  is  made  to  utter  a  prophecy  that  Jupiter  has 
rejected  the  house  of  Priam,  but  that  “iEneas,  and 
his  sons,  and  his  sons’  sons”  should  hereafter  reign  over 
the  Trojans.”  t  Some  Homeric  critics  have  even  fan¬ 
cied  that  they  detected,  in  some  passages  of  Homer’s 
poem,  a  jealousy  between  AEneas  and  the  sons  of  Priam. 
But  this  surely  arises  from  reading  Homer  by  the  light 
of  Virgil,  and  thus  anticipating  the  future  turn  of  events, 
when,  after  the  death  of  Hector  and  the  fall  of  Priam’s 
kingdom,  the  prince  of  the  house  of  Assaracus  should 
rebuild  the  Trojan  fortunes  on  the  far-off  shores  of  Italy. 

*  Tlie  following  pedigree  is  mythical — as  pedigrees  often  are : 

Tros. 

_ ! _ 

i  I 

Ilus.  Assaracus. 

!  t 

Laomedon.  Capys. 

Priam.  Anchises. 

jEneas. 


t  Iliad,  xx.  306. 


SHIPWRECK  ON  THE  COAST  OF  CARTHAGE.  43 


Like  Homer,  Yirgil  dashes  at  once  into  tlie  heart  of 
his  story.  This  is  how  he  introduces  his  hero  : — 

“  Arms  and  the  man  I  sing,  who  first, 

By  fate  of  Ilian  realm  amerced, 

To  fair  Italia  onward  bore, 

And  landed  on  Lavinium’s  shore.”  * 

He  tells  us  nothing,  however,  for  the  present,  of  the 
escape  from  Troy  and  the  embarkation  of  the  fugitives, 
or  of  the  guiding  oracles  in  obedience  to  which  they 
had  sailed  forth  in  quest  of  this  new  home.  He  only 
shows  us  HUneas  on  the  sea,  having  just  set  sail  from 
Sicily,  where  the  angry  Queen  of  Heaven  catches 
sight  of  him.  Juno,  we  must  remember- — Yirgil, 
apparently,  has  no  idea  that  any  one  could  need  re¬ 
minding  of  it — Juno  has  never  forgotten  or  forgiven 
that  scene  upon  Mount  Ida,  where  the  Trojan  Paris 
preferred  the  fascinations — or  the  bribes — of  Yenus  to 
her  own  stately  charms.  She  had  persuaded  her  royal 
consort,  the  king  of  gods  and  men,  to  consent  to  the 
downfall  of  the  accursed  race ;  and  she  persecutes  this 
unhappy  remnant,  now  on  its  voyage,  with  unrelent¬ 
ing  hate.  Even  the  poet,  who  makes  use  of  her  per¬ 
secution  as  one  of  the  mainsprings  of  his  story,  pro¬ 
fesses  his  astonishment  at  its  bitterness, — 

Can  such  deep  hate  find  place  in  breasts  divine  ?”  f 

*  The  extracts  are  in  all  cases  (where  not  otherwise  marked) 
from  Mr  Conington’s  translation,  and  are  made  with  the  per¬ 
mission  of  his  representatives  and  publishers. 

+  Milton  has  translated  the  line  almost  literally: — 

“  In  heavenly  spirits  could  such  perversion  dwell  ?” 

— Par.  Lost,  vi. 


44 


THE  uENElD. 


She  had  another  reason,  too,  for  her  present  jealous 
feelings.  The  city  of  Carthage,  where  she  was  espe¬ 
cially  honoured,  she  had  hoped  to  make  the  mistress 
of  the  world.  And  now — so  the  inexorable  Fates 
have  woven  it  in  their  web — this  new  brood  from 
Troy  are  to  destroy  it  in  the  years  to  come.  Rome, 
and  not  Carthage,  the  Roman  poet  would  thus  convey 
to  his  readers,  is  to  have  this  universal  empire. 

But  they  have  not  reached  Latium  yet,  these 
hateful  Trojans.  They  never  shall.  The  Queen  of 
Heaven  betakes  herself  to  the  King  of  the  Winds, 
where  he  sits  enthroned  in  his  Homeric  island  of 
iEolia,  controlling  his  boisterous  subjects  : — 

“  They  with  the  rock’s  reverberant  roar 
Chafe  blustering  round  their  prison  door : 

He,  throned  on  high,  the  sceptre  sways, 

Controls  their  moods,  their  wrath  allays. 

Break  but  that  sceptre,  sea  and  land 
And  heaven’s  ethereal  deep 
Before  them  they  would  whirl  like  sand, 

And  through  the  void  air  sweep.” 

At  Juno’s  request  iEolus  lets  loose  his  prisoners.  Out 
rush  the  winds  in  mad  delight. 

“  All  in  a  moment,  sun  and  skies 
Are  blotted  from  the  Trojans’  eyes  : 

Black  night  is  brooding  o’er  the  deep, 

Sharp  thunder  peals,  live  lightnings  leap : 

The  stoutest  warrior  holds  his  breath, 

And  looks  as  on  the  face  of  death. 

At  once  iEneas  thrilled  with  dread  ; 

Fdrth  from  his  breast,  with  hands  outspread. 
These  groaning  words  he  drew : 


SHIPWRECK  ON  THE  COAST  OF  CARTHAGE.  45 

*  0  happy  thrice,  and  yet  again, 

Who  died  at  Troy  like  valiant  men, 

E’en  in  their  parents’  view  ! 

O  Diomed,  first  of  Greeks  in  fray, 

Why  passed  I  not  the  plain  that  day, 

Yielding  my  life  to  you, 

Where,  stretched  beneath  a  Phrygian  sky, 

Fierce  Hector,  tall  Sarpedon,  lie  : 

Where  Simois  tumbles  ’neath  his  wave 
Shields,  helms,  and  bodies  of  the  brave  ?  ’  ” 

The  fleet  is  scattered  in  all  directions  :  some  ships  are 
cast  on  the  rocks ;  one  goes  down  with  all  its  crew 
before  their  leader’s  eyes.  But  Neptune,  the  sea-god, 
comes  to  the  rescue.  Friendly  to  the  Trojans,  as  Juno  is 
hostile  to  them,  he  resents  the  interference  of  the  King 
of  the  Winds  in  his  dominions — he  knows  by  whose 
instance  he  has  dared  this  outrage.  He  summons  the  of¬ 
fending  winds,  and  chides  them  with  stern  authority  : — 

“  Back  to  your  master  instant  flee, 

And  tell  him,  not  to  him  but  me 
The  imperial  trident  of  the  sea 
Fell  by  the  lot’s  award  ; 

His  is  that  prison-house  of  stone, 

A  prison,  Eurus,  all  your  own  ; 

There  let  him  lord  it  to  his  mind, 

The  jailer-monarch  of  the  wind, 

But  keep  its  portal  barred.” 

So  the  tempest  is  stilled,  and  H£neas,  with  seven 
ships,  the  survivors  of  his  fleet  of  twenty,  runs  into  a 
land-locked  harbour  on  the  coast  of  Carthage.  The 
crews  light  a  fire,  and  grind  and  parch  their  corn, 
while  iEneas  goes  farther  inland  to  reconnoitre,  and 
kills  deer  to  mend  their  meal.  Wine  they  have  good 


46 


THE  MNEID. 


store  of — the  parting  gift  from  King  Acestes,  late  tlieir 
host  in  Sicily.  The  chief,  though  in  sad  anxiety  as  to 
the  fate  of  his  absent  comrades,  speaks  to  the  rest  in 
words  of  good  cheer  : — 

“  Y o’i  that  have  seen  grim  Scylla  rave, 

And  heard  her  monsters  yell, — 

You  that  have  looked  upon  the  cave 
Where  savage  Cyclops  dwell, — 

Come,  cheer  your  souls,  your  fears  forget ; 

This  suffering  may  yield  us  yet 
A  pleasant  tale  to  tell.” 


iEneas  has  his  advocate,  too,  in  the  celestial  council. 
His  goddess  -  mother  Yenus  pleads  with  her  father 
Jupiter  to  have  pity  on  her  offspring.  And  Jupiter — - 
very  open  to  influence  of  this  kind  now,  as  in  Homer’s 
story  —  reveals  for  her  comfort  the  secrets  of  fate. 
AEneas  shall  reach  Latium  safely,  and  reign  there 
three  years.  His  son  lulus — or  Ascanius,  as  he  is 
otherwise  called — shall  succeed  him,  and  transfer  the 
seat  of  power  from  Lavinium  to  his  own  new-founded 
city,  Alba  Longa.  Three  hundred  years  his  race  «hall 
rule  there,  till  in  due  course  the  twin-brothers  Ivomu-^/ 
lus  and  Remus  shall  be  born  to  the  war-god  Mars,  and 
the  elder  brother  shall  lay  the  foundations  of  Home. 

To  the  glories  of  this  new  capital  the  Father  of  the  goda 


will  assign  neither  limit  nor  end. 


The  wrongs  of  Trov 


shall  be  redressed.  The  sons  of  the  East,  in  tlieii  ne»» 
home,  shall  avenge  themselves  on  their  enemies. 


“  So  stands  my  will.  There  comes  a  day, 
While  Rome’s  great  ages  hold  their  way, 
When  old  Assaracus’s  sons 
Shall  quit  them  on  the  Myrmidons, 


SHIPWRECK  ON  THE  COAST  OF  CARTIIAGE.  ±7 


O’er  Phthia  and  Mycenae  reign, 

And  humble  Argos  to  their  chain. 

From  Troy’s  fair  stock  shall  Caesar  rise, 

The  limits  of  whose  victories 
Are  ocean,  of  his  fame  the  skies  ; 

Great  J ulius,  proud  that  style  to  bear, 

In  name  and  blood  lulus’  heir.” 

Thus,  before  he  has  concluded  the  first  book  of  his 
great  poem,  the  poet  has  taken  us  into  his  counsels  as 
to  the  purport  of  the  song.  It  is  not  a  mere  epic 
romance,  in  which  we  are  to  be  charmed  with  heroic 
deeds  and  exciting  adventures ;  it  is,  like  some  of  om 
modern  novels,  a  romance  with  a  purpose ;  and  the 
purpose  is  the  claiming  for  the  great  house  of  Julius 
the  rightful  empire  of  Rome,  and  the  celebration  of 
the  glories  of  that  house  in  the  person  of  Augustus. 
And  as  the  Iliad  of  Homer,  beyond  the  mere  vocation 
of  the  poet  to  arouse  and  charm  a  warlike  audience  by 
the  recital  of  deeds  of  arms,  had  its  own  purpose  also 
— the  glorification  of  the  Greek  nation — so  the  Roman 
poet  may  be  said  to  have  written  a  counter-Iliad,  to 
extol  the  later  fortunes  of  the  royal  house  of  Troy 
in  the  descendants,  as  he  is  pleased  to  imagine  them, 
of  lulus.  For  any  historic  foundation  of  such  a 
genealogy  we  may  look  in  vain.  King  Brute  stands 
upon  much  the  same  historical  level,  as  the  ances¬ 
tor  of  the  Britons,  as  can  be  claimed  for  lulus  of 
Troy  as  the  founder  of  the  Julian  house  and  of  Rome. 
But,  for  the  present,  we  must  be  content  to  assume 
his  existence,  and  to  follow  the  course  of  the 
narrative  as  the  poet  wills.  The  claim  of  Trojan 
descent  is  not  an  invention  of  Virgil's,  though  he 


43 


THE  JEN  El  D. 


may  have  been  tlie  first  to  work  it  out  so  much  ir» 
detail.  It  was  a  claim  in  which  his  countrymen 
always  delighted,  and  there  were  not  wanting  tradi¬ 
tions  in  its  support.  Another  purpose,  also,  Yirgil 
seems  to  have  at  heart.  He  does  not  care  so  much, 
after  all,  for  the  subjugation  of  Greece  and  the  ex¬ 
tension  of  the  imperial  rule  of  Home.  The  empire 
of  Augustus  is  to  be  peace.  There  has  been  enough, 
and  more  than  enough,  of  war.  In  the  prognostica¬ 
tions  of  the  future  of  his  nation,  even  here  we  are  re¬ 
minded  of  the  strains  of  the  “Pollio.”  To  the  soul  of 
the  Roman  poet — unlike  his  master  Homer  in  this — • 
war,  and  more  especially  civil  war,  is  absolutely  hateful. 
He  can  describe  it,  when  needed  for  his  purpose,  and 
describe  it  well ;  but  it  is  as  the  scourge  of  nations,  or  at 
best  the  terrible  remedy  for  greater  evils ; — not,  as  the 
Greek  poet  calls  it,  “  the  strife  which  is  the  joy  of  men.” 

Venus  loses  no  time  in  furthering,  so  far  as  she 
may,  the  counsels  of  Jupiter.  She  puts  into  the 
heart  of  the  Queen  of  Carthage,  on  whose  shores 
H3neas  and  his  crews  have  now  been  cast,  feelings  of 
pity  and  compassion  towards  the  shipwrecked  stran¬ 
gers.  She  comes  in  person,  also,  to  comfort  her  son 
iEneas  in  his  trouble.  Attended  by  his  faithful 
friend  Achates,  he  is  exploring,  like  a  careful  leader, 
the  strange  coast  on  which  he  finds  himself — 

“  When  in  the  bosom  of  the  wood 
Before  him,  lo,  his  mother  stood. 

In  mien  and  gear  a  Spartan  maid, 

Or  like  Harpalyce  arrayed, 

Who  tires  fleet  coursers  in  the  chase, 

And  heads  the  swiftest  streams  of  Thrace. 


SHIPWRECK  ON  TIIE  COAST  OF  CARTHAGE.  49 

Slung  from  lier  shoulders  hangs  a  how ; 

Loose  to  the  wind  her  tresses  flow ; 

Bare  was  her  knee  ;  her  mantle’s  fold 
The  gathering  of  a  knot  controlled. 

And  ‘  Saw  ye,  youths,’  she  asks  them,  *  say* 

One  of  my  sisters  here  astray; 

A  silver  quiver  at  her  side, 

And  for  a  scarf  a  lynx’s  hide ; 

Or  pressing  on  the  wild  boar’s  track 
"With  upraised  dart  and  voiceful  pack  ?  ’  ” 

There  is  in  this  description  a  happy  reminiscence  of 
an  earlier  legend.  In  such,  guise — not  with  any  of 
the  meretricious  attractions  assigned  to  the  goddess 
of  Cyprus  and  of  Paphos,  but  as  a  simple  mountain 
nymph — had  she  won  her  mortal  lover,  the  Trojan 
shepherd  Anchises,  from  whom  this  her  dear  son  was 
born.  So  ran  the  fable ;  and  it  was  added  that  she 
had  enjoined  her  lover  never  to  disclose  the  secret  of 
the  child’s  birth,  nor  to  boast  of  the  favour  shown 
him  by  a  goddess,  but  to  bring  the  boy  up  in  the 
forests  of  Ida,  as  the  offspring  of  a  wood  -  nymph. 
Anchises,  in  his  pride,  had  neglected  or  forgotten  her 
warning,  and  was  punished  by  premature  weakness 
and  a  helpless  old  age. 

Professing  herself  to  be  but  a  Tyrian  damsel,  Venus 
replies  to  her  son’s  questions  as  to  the  inhabitants  of 
the  land.  They  are  a  colony  from  Tyre;  their  queen, 
Dido,  has  fled  from  the  treachery  of  her  false  brother 
Pygmalion,  who,  after  murdering  her  husband  Sichseus, 
had  possessed  himself  of  the  kingdom.  Hither  she 
has  escaped  with  her  husband’s  wealth,  and  is  found¬ 
ing  a  new  city  on  the  coast  of  Africa.  .Eneas  tells 
a.  c.  vol.  v. 


D 


50 


THE  J2NE1D. 


her  in  return  his  own  sad  story,  and  is  comforted  by 
the  assurance  that  all  his  fleet,  though  scattered,  are 
safe — all  but  one  unhappy  vessel  and  her  crew.  Then, 
as  she  turns  to  leave  liim,  the  disguised  divinity  be¬ 
comes  apparent. 

“  Ambrosial  tresses  round  her  head 
A  more  than  earthly  fragrance  shed  ; 

Her  falling  robe  her  footsteps  swept, 

And  showed  the  goddess  as  she  stept.” 

r 

/Eneas  and  his  companion  mount  the  crest  of  the 
hill,  whence  they  look  down  upon  the  half-finished 
walls  of  Carthage,  and  the  swarming  bands  of  work¬ 
men.  They  are  digging  out  the  harbour,  planning  that 
most  essential  structure  in  a  city  of  any  pretension,  .an 
amphitheatre  for  public  spectacles,  and  building  a 
magnificent  temple  to  Juno.  Girt  with  a  mist  of 
invisibility  which  Yenus  has  thrown  round  them, — 
like  Ulysses  in  the  court  of  Phseacia — the  strangers 
enter  the  brazen  gates  of  the  temple.  All  is  magnifi¬ 
cent  and  wonderful.  But,  marvel  of  marvels!  both 
walls  and  doors  are  sculptured  with  a  history  which 
/Eneas  knows  only  too  well.  Even  here  is  recorded, 
on  this  distant  and  unknown  shore,  the  story  of  stories 
— the  Tale  of  Troy.  With  eager  and  tearful  eyes  the 
Trojan  chief  peruses  the  several  groups,  and  identifies 
the  various  incidents.  Here  the  Greeks  fly  to  their 
ships,  hard  pressed  by  Hector  and  the  Trojans  :  there, 
again,  the  terrible  Achilles  drives  the  Trojans  in 
slaughter  before  him.  The  death  of  young  Troilus, 
hurled  from  his  chariot,  is  there;  and,  to  match  the  pic¬ 
ture.  Hector  dragged  at  Achilles’s  chariot-wheels  round 


SHIPWRECK  ON  THE  COAST  OF  CARTHAGE.  5i 


the  city  walls.  Memnon  the  Ethiopian  and  the  ama¬ 
zon  Penthesilea  also  find  a  place ;  and  there,  amidst 
the  foremost  combatants,  iEneas  can  recognise  himself. 

While  the  Trojan  chief  and  his  companion  Achates 
are  reading  this  sculptured  history,  the  queen  herself 
approaches.  And  while  they  admire  her  majesty  and 
grace,  conspicuous  amongst  all  her  train,  lo  !  the 
missing  comrades  of  iEneas  make  their  appearance  be¬ 
fore  her  as  suppliants.  They  tell  the  story  of  their 
shipwreck  on  the  coast :  and  they  think  iEneas  is  lost, 
as  he  had  thought  they  were.  Then  the  mist  in  which 
Yenus  had  wrapped  the  hero  and  his  comrade  dissolves, 
and  the  two  parties  recognise  and  welcome  each  other. 
Dido,  like  all  the  world,  has  heard  of  the  name  of 
.Eneas,  and  the  sufferings  of  the  heroes  of  Troy.  She 
can  pity  such  sufferings  from  her  own  bitter  experience  : 

“  Myself  not  ignorant  of  woe, 

Compassion  I  have  learnt  to  show.” 

The  sentiment  has  been  adopted  by  modern  writers 
in  all  languages.  “  She  had  suffered  persecution  and 
learnt  mercy,”  says  Sterne  in  a  like  case :  and  even  in 
Sterne’s  mouth,  the  sentiment  is  natural  and  true. 

The  strangers  are  hospitably  welcomed,  and  offered 
every  facility  for  refitting  their  fleet,  and  preparing  for 
the  continuance  of  their  voyage.  Eneas  sends  down 
to  his  ships  for  presents  worthy  of  so  kind  a  hostess : 
and,  with  a  father’s  pride,  he  sends  also  for  his  young 
son  to  introduce  him  to  the  queen.  The  evening  is 
devoted  to  feasting  and  revelry.  The  royal  bard — 
that  indispensable  figure  in  all  courts,  Trojan  or  Tyrian 
or  Greek — sings  to  the  assembled  guests.  It  is  to  be 
remarked  that  his  lay  is  not,  as  we  might  expect,  of 


52 


THE  JEN EID. 


heroes  and  tlieir  deeds:  it  is  the  song  of  Silenus,  in 
the  Pastorals,  over  again — the  favourite  subject  of  the 
poet,  the  wonders  of  nature  and  creation. 

“  He  sings  the  wanderings  of  the  moon, 

The  sun  eclipsed  in  deadly  swoon  ; 

Whence  humankind  and  cattle  came, 

And  whence  the  rain-spout  and  the  flame, 
Arcturus  and  the  two  bright  bears, 

And  Hyads  weeping  showery  tears  ; 

Why  winter  suns  so  swiftly  go, 

And  why  the  winter  nights  move  slow.” 

All  the  while,  during  the  song  and  the  banquet,  the 
queen  is  fondling  the  fair  boy,  who  sits  next  to  her. 
Unhappy  Dido  !  it  is  Cupid,  the  god  of  love,  who, 
at  his  false  mother’s  bidding,  has  assumed  the  shape 
of  iEneas’s  young  son.  The  true  Ascanius  lies  fast 
bound  in  an  enchanted  sleep,  by  Venus’s  machina¬ 
tions,  in  her  bower  in  the  far  island  of  Cythera ;  and 
the  Tyrian  queen  is  nursing  unawares  in  her  bosom 
the  passion  which  is  to  be  her  ruin.  iEneas  has  al¬ 
ready  become  an  object  of  tender  interest  to  her.  She 
hangs  upon  his  lips,  like  Desdemona  on  Othello’s : — 

“  Much  of  great  Priam  asks  the  dame, 

Much  of  his  greater  son  ; 

Now  in  what  armour  Memnon  came, 

Now  how  Achilles  shone.” 

Above  all,  she  begs  of  him  to  tell  his  own  story — his 
escape  and  his  seven  years’  wanderings.  And  AEneas 
begins ;  and,  with  an  exact  imitation  of  Homer’s 
management  of  his  story,  like  Ulysses  in  the  court  of 
Alcinous,  retraces  his  adventures  from  the  last  fatal 
night  of  Troy. 


CHAPTER  IL 


JEN  EAS  RELATES  THE  FALL  OF  TROY. 

It  has  been  said  that  this  poem  is  a  kind  of  supple¬ 
ment  to  the  Iliad.  iEneas  tells  us  what  was  not  there 
told  by  Homer,  but  what  is  presupposed  in  his  Odys¬ 
sey, — the  later  history  of  the  siege  and  capture  of 
Troy.  He  relates  at  length  the  stratagem  of  the 
Wooden  Horse,  by  which  the  Greeks  at  last  outwitted 
their  enemies.  The  fleet,  which  bad  seemed  to  sail  for 
home,  had  withdrawn,  and  lay  concealed  in  the  harbour 
of  Tenedos.  The  wooden  fabric — dedicated  to  Minerva, 
as  the  tale  went — was  left  standing  outside  the  city. 
It  was  suggested  to  bring  it  within  the  walls,  when 
the  priest  Laocoon  rushed  to  prevent  it — suspecting 
some  such  stratagem  as  in  truth  had  been  contrived. 
He  even  hurled  his  spear  against  its  side,  and  might 
have  thus  made  a  beginning  of  its  destruction,  when 
behold,  a  prisoner  was  brought  in.  It  was  the  treach¬ 
erous  Sinon ;  a  Greek  who  had  undertaken  to  play 
the  dangerous  part  of  a  double  spy.  The  tale  he  told 
his  captors  was  this :  that  he,  though  a  Greek,  was  a 
fugitive  from  Greek  vengeance — especially  from  the 


54 


THE  JENE1D. 


f 


t 

j 

\ 


liated  Ulysses.  He  had  "been  fixed  upon  as  a  victim 
to  propitiate  the  offended  gods ;  for  there  had  come  an 
oracle  from  Apollo,  that  as  the  blood  of  a  virgin  had 
to  he  shed  to  propitiate  the  gales  on  the  expedition  to 
Troy,  so  blood — that  of  a  Greek — must  purchase  their 
return.  Ulysses  had  contrived  that  Sinon  should  be 
the  victim,  and  it  was  to  escape  this  doom  that  he 
had  thus  fled. 

The  Trojans  were  moved  to  pity — they  spared  the 
traitor’s  life;  only,  in  return,  King  Priam  adjured  him 
to  tell  them  the  true  intent  of  the  Horse.  Sinon 
declared  that  the  Greeks  had  meant  to  set  it  up 
themselves,  an  offering  to  Minerva,  within  the  Trojan 
citadel  when  they  should  have  captured  it ;  it  be¬ 
hoved  the  Trojans  now  to  seize  it  and  drag  it  within 
the  walls  :  for,  if  this  were  done,  then — so  ran  the 
oracles — Asia  should  avenge  itself  upon  Europe,  and 
the  Greeks  in  their  turn  should  be  besieged  in  their 
homes.* 

The  traitor’s  tale  was  all  too  easily  believed.  There 
came,  too,  a  fearful  omen,  which  hurried  the  Trojans 
to  adopt  this  false  counsel.  The  priest  Laocoon,  who 
had  dared  to  strike  the  wooden  monster,  was  seized, 
while  offering  sacrifice  to  Neptune,  with  his  two  sons, 
by  two  huge  sea-serpents  (so  old  is  the  belief,  false  or 
true,  in  these  apocryphal  monsters),  which  came  sail¬ 
ing  in  to  the  beach  from  the  direction  of  Tenedos.  In 
the  description  which  the  poet  gives  of  their  move- 


*  Dante  in  his  Inferno  punishes  Sinon  with  an  eternal  sweat¬ 
ing-sickness  :  a  singular  penalty,  which  is  shared  only  bj 
Potipliar’s  wife. — Inf.  xxx. 


jENEAS  relates  tue  fall  of  troy.  55 


ments  at  sea,  we  seem  to  "be  reading  a  versified  extract 
from  the  log  of  some  modem  sea-captain  : — 

“  Amid  the  waves  they  rear  their  breasts, 

And  toss  on  high  their  sanguined  crests  ;* 

The  hind-part  coils  along  the  deep, 

And  undulates  with  sinuous  sweep.” 

The  two  unhappy  youths  are  first  caught  and  strangled 
— then  the  father.  The  legend  is  well  known  to  others 
besides  students  of  the  dtneid,  from  the  marble  group  of 
the  Laocoon ;  which,  however,  does  not  tell  the  story 
in  the  same  way,  or  in  so  probable  a  shape,  as  the  poet 
does,  since  it  represents  the  reptiles  as  embracing  all 
three  victims  at  once  in  their  folds.  Then,  with  glad 
shouts  and  songs  of  youths  and  maidens,  the  huge 
monster  was  dragged  over  a  breach  made  purposely  in 
the  walls  of  Troy.  Yet  not  without  a  voice  of  warn¬ 
ing,  disregarded,  from  Cassandra,  daughter  of  King 
Priam,  who  had  the  gift  of  prophecy,  and  whose  fate 
it  was,  like  so  many  prophets  in  their  own  families,  to 
prophesy  in  vain — nor  without  difficulties  which  might 

in  themselves  have  well  been  considered  presages  of 

evil : — 


“  Four  times  ’twas  on  the  threshold  stayed ; 

Four  times  the  armour  clashed  and  brayed; 

Yet  press  we  on,  with  passion  blind, 

All  forethought  blotted  from  our  mind, 

Till  the  dread  monster  we  install 
Within  the  temple’s  tower-built  wall.” 

*  Nay,  the  “  crests  ”  spoken  of  seem  to  have  been  (as  re¬ 
ported  of  the  modern  sea-serpent)  of  actual  hair ;  since  Pindar, 
as  Conington  has  noted,  calls  them  “maims.” 


56 


THE  jENEID. 


Inside,  tlie  fabric  is  full  of  armed  Greeks.  Hot* 
many  there  were  in  number  has  been  disputed  — 
though  possibly,  in  a  legend  of  this  kind,  the  question 
of  more  or  fewer  is  scarcely  relevant.  It  is  a  question, 
however,  which  derives  some  interest  from  the  fact 
that  it  was  one  of  the  difficulties  which  exercised  the 
mind  of  the  first  Napoleon  during  his  exile.  Studying 
the  siege  of  Troy  as  if  it  were  a  mere  prosaic  operation 
in  modem  warfare,  he  was  struck  by  the  improbability 
of  the  whole  stratagem.  How  “  even  a  single  com¬ 
pany  of  the  Guard  ”  could  be  hid  in  such  a  machine, 
and  dragged  from  some  distance  inside  the  city  walls, 
the  Trench  Emperor  was  unable  to  conceive,  and  re¬ 
garded  the  story  as  an  infringement  of  even  a  poet’s 
licence.  Napoleon  was  not  much  of  a  Latin  scholar, 
and,  so  far  as  the  main  point  of  his  criticism  went,  had 
depended  too  implicitly  upon  Trench  translators. 
Segrais,  discussing  the  question  in  a  note,  thought 
there  might  be  perhaps  some  two  or  three  hundred. 
Indeed  most  of  our  English  translators  have  gone  out 
of  their  way  to  exaggerate  the  number.  But  Virgil 
himself,  as  has  been  pertinently  remarked  by  Dr 
Henry,  only  makes  nine  men  actually  come  out  of  the 
horse,  all  of  whom  he  mentions  by  name.  The  poet 
certainly  does  not  say  in  so  many  words  that  these 
were  all,  but  he,  at  least,  is  not  answerable  for  a  larger 
number.  Among  the  nine  are  the  young  Neoptolemus, 
surnamed  Pyrrhus — “  Red -haired/’ — son  of  the  dead 
Achilles,  and  now  his  successor  in  the  recognised 
championship  of  the  force  ;  Sthenelus,  the  friend  and 
comrade  of  Diomed  (for  whose  absence  it  seems  hard 


jENEAS  relates  the  fall  of  TROY.  57 


to  account);  Machaon,  tlie  hero-physician,  whom  one 
hardly  expects  to  find  selected  for  such  a  desperate 
service  ;  Epeus,  the  contriver  of  the  machine ,  and 
Ulysses,  without  whose  aid  and  presence  no  such  strat¬ 
agem  would  seem  complete. 

At  dead  of  night  the  traitor  Sinon  looked  out  to 
sea,  and  saw  a  light  in  the  offing.  It  was  the  fire- 
signal  from  Agamemnon’s  vessel ;  the  Greek  fleet  had 
come  hack  under  cover  of  the  darkness  from  its  lurk¬ 
ing-place  at  Tenedos.  Then  he  silently  undid  the 
fastenings  of  the  horse,  and  the  Greek  adventurers,  as 
has  been  said,  emerged  from  their  wooden  prison. 

In  the  visions  of  the  night  iEneas  saw  the  ghastly 
spectre  of  the  dead  Hector  stand  before  him, — 

“  All  torn  by  dragging  at  the  car, 

And  black  with  gory  dust  of  war. 

•  •  •  •  •  • 

Ah,  what  a  sight  was  there  to  view  ! 

How  altered  from  the  man  we  knew, 

Our  Hector,  who  from  day’s  long  toil 
Comes  radiant  in  Achilles’  spoil, 

Or  with  that  red  right  hand,  which  casts 
The  fires  of  Troy  on  Grecian  masts  ! 

Blood-clotted  hung  his  beard  and  hair, 

And  all  those  many  wounds  were  there, 

Which  on  his  gracious  person  fell 
Around  the  walls  he  loved  so  well.” 

Virgil  seems  to  have  followed  the  more  horrible  tradi 
tion,  which  appears  also  in  some  of  the  Greek  drama¬ 
tists,  that  Achilles  fastened  Hector  to  his  chariot  while 

still  alive. 

The  shade  of  the  dead  hero  had  come  to  warn 


58 


THE  JZNEID. 


yEneas  not  to  throw  away  his  life  in  a  hopeless  resist¬ 
ance.  Troy  must  fall :  hut  to  iEneas,  as  the  hope  of 
his  race,  the  prince  of  the  house  of  Priam  formally 
intrusts  the  national  gods  of  Troy  and  the  sacred  fire  of 
Yesta,  to  be  carried  into  the  new  land  which  he  shall 
colonise.  It  is  a  formal  transfer  of  the  kingdom  and 
the  priesthood  to  the  younger  branch  —  the  line  of 
Assaracus. 

Aeneas  awoke,  as  he  goes  on  to  tell,  to  hear  the 
war-cries  of  the  Greeks  and  the  clash  of  arms  within 
the  city.  Already  the  storm ing-party  had  attacked 
and  set  fire  to  the  house  of  Deiphobus, —  to  whom 
Helen,  willing  or  unwilling,  had  been  made  over  on 
the  death  of  Paris ;  and  therefore  naturally  the  first 
point  which  Menelaus  made  for.  .ZEneas  himself  is 
summoned  by  a  comrade,  Panthus,  to  come  to  the 
rescue.  The  first  despairing  words  of  Panthus  have  a 
pathos  which  has  made  them  well  known.  Ho  Eng¬ 
lish  idiom  will  express  with  equal  brevity  and  point 
the  Latin  “  Fuimus ,” — “  We  have  been — and  are  not,” 
for  this  is  understood.*  “  Fuimus  Troes  ” — Mr  Con- 
ington’s  translation  gives  the  full  sense,  but  at  the 
expense  of  its  terseness  : — 

“We  have  been  Trojans — Troy  has  been — 

She  sat,  but  sits  no  more,  a  queen.” 

It  was  a  phrase  peculiarly  Roman.  So  they  used  the 
word  “  Yixi  ” — “  I  have  lived  ” — in  epitaphs,  to  ex¬ 
press  death ;  though  in  this,  as  in  so  many  cases,  the 

*  Tlie  Frencli  word  “feu,"  used  of  a  person  deceased,  is  pro 
bahly  from  this  Latin  use  of  “  fui .” 


JSNEAS  RELATES  THE  FALL  OF  TROY.  59 


turn  of  the  expression  is  due  to  that  euphemism  which 
refrained  from  using  any  words  of  direct  ill  omen. 

“The  father  of  the  gods,”  says  Panthus,  “lias  trans¬ 
ferred  all  our  glory  to  Argos.”  There  was  a  story 
(alluded  to  in  one  of  the  lost  tragedies  of  Sophocles, 
of  which  we  have  hut  a  fragment)  that  on  the  night  of 
the  capture  of  Troy  the  tutelary  deities  departed  in  a 
"body,  taking  their  images  with  them.  It  is  a  singular 
parallel  to  the  well-known  tradition,  that  before  the 
fall  of  Jerusalem  supernatural  voices  were  heard  in  the 
night  exclaiming,  “Let  us  depart  hence!”  The 
Romans  had  a  regular  formula  for  the  evocation  of  the 
gods  from  an  enemy’s  city,  and  inviting  them,  with 
promises  of  all  due  honours  and  sacrifices,  to  transfer 
their  seat  to  Rome ;  and  to  attack  any  city  without 
these  solemn  preliminaries  was  held  to  bring  a  curse 
on  the  besiegers.* 

H3neas  is  anxious  to  assure  his  fair  listener  that,  in 
spite  of  Hector’s  adjuration  to  fly,  he  did  all  that  man 
might  do  in  defence  of  his  king  and  his  countrymen. 
He  Pad.  rallied  a  band  of  brave  men,  and  for  a  while 
made  head  against  the  enemy.  They  were  favoured 
by  the  mistake  made  by  a  party  of  Greeks,  who  took 
them  for  friends  in  the  darkness,  and  whom  they  cut 
to  pieces,  and  having  arrayed  themselves  in  their  armour, 
dealt  destruction  in  the  enemy’s  very  ranks.  But  all 
resistance  was  in  vain.  The  appearance  of  Heoptole- 
mus — Pyrrhus — the  “  Red-haired  ” — and  the  compari¬ 
son  of  the  young  warrior  in  his  strength  and  beauty  to 

*  For  this  reason,  says  Macrobius,  the  real  name  of  Borne 
®*id  of  its  guardian  deity  was  always  kept  a  secret. 


GO 


THE  jENEID. 


the  serpent  who  comes  forth  after  casting  its  wintei 
slough,  is  fine  in  the  original,  and  finely  translated 

“  Full  in  the  gate  see  Pyrrhus  blaze, 

A  meteor,  shooting  steely  rays  : 

So  flames  a  serpent  into  light, 

On  poisonous  herbage  fed, 

Which  late  in  subterranean  night 
Through  winter  lay  as  dead  : 

Now  from  its  ancient  wounds  undressed, 

Invigorate  and  young, 

Sunward  it  rears  its  glittering  breast, 

And  darts  its  three-forked  tongue.” 

And  the  fate  of  the  unhappy  Priam  is  an  equally 
beautiful  picture,  of  a  different  tone  : — 

“  Perhaps  you  ask  of  Priam’s  fate  : 

He,  when  he  sees  his  town  o’erthrown, 

Greeks  bursting  through  his  palace-gate, 

And  thronging  chambers  once  his  own, 

His  ancient  armour,  long  laid  by, 

Around  his  palsied  shoulders  throws, 

Girds  with  a  useless  sword  his  thigh, 

And  totters  forth  to  meet  his  foes.” 

Hecuba,  who  with  her  women  is  clinging  to  the  altar, 
rebukes  her  husband  for  this  mad  attempt  to  match 
his  feeble  strength  against  the  enemy.  Still,  when 
Pyrrhus  rushes  into  the  hall  in  pursuit  of  one  of 
Priam’s  sons,  Polites,  and  slays  him  full  in  the  father’s 
sight,  the  old  man  hurls  a  javelin  at  the  Greek  chief, 
with  a  taunting  curse  upon  his  cruelty.  But  it  is 

“  A  feeble  dart,  no  blood  that  drew  ; 

The  ringing  metal  turned  it  back, 

And  left  it  clinging,  weak  and  slack  ” 


AENEAS /RE I ATES  TIIE  FALL  OF  TROY.  Gl 

And  the  ruthless  son  of  Achilles  drags  the  old  king 
to  the  altar,  and  slays  him  there. 

One  more  episode  of  that  terrible  night  AEneas 
relates  to  his  hostess  : — 

“  I  stood  alone,  when  lo  !  I  mark, 

In  Vesta’s  temple  crouching  dark, 

The  traitress  Helen :  the  broad  blaze 
Gives  me  full  light,  as  round  I  gaze. 

She,  shrinking  from  the  Trojans’  hate, 

Made  frantic  by  their  city’s  fate, 

Nor  dreading  less  the  Danaan  sword, 

The  vengeance  of  her  injured  lord, — 

She,  Troy’s  and  Argos’  common  fiend, 

Sat  cowering,  by  the  altar  screened. 

My  blood  was  fired  :  fierce  passion  woke 
To  quit  Troy’s  fall  by  one  sure  stroke.” 

But  his  goddess-mother,  Venus,  stays  his  hand,  and 
bids  him  think  rather  of  saving  his  wife,  and  aged 
father,  and  infant  son.  Virgil  gives  us  no  hint  of 
the  other  story  of  Helen’s  discovery  by  her  angry 
husband  Menelaus,  who  was  lifting  his  sword  to  kill 
the  adulteress,  when  his  arm  fell  powerless  before  the 
fascination  of  her  beauty. 

Obedient  to  the  goddess,  says  iEneas,  he  went  to 
seek  his  father  Anchises,  that  he  might  carry  him 
with  him  in  his  flight.  But  the  old  man  refused  to 
move.  He  would  die,  he  said,  in  Troy.  Life  might 
be  dear  to  the' young  ;  but  for  himself,  even  the  tender 
mercies  of  the  enemy  would  give  him  all  he  seeks* 
though  they  leave  his  corpse  unburied, — 

“  IJe  lacks  not  much  that  lacks  a  grave.” 


G2 


THE  jENEID. 


4 


l 


The  desperate  entreaties  of  his  son  were  all  in  vain, 
until  there  came  an, omen  from  heaven.  While  ASneas 
was  threatening  —  since  the  old  man  would  not  he 
saved — to  rush  himself  again  into  the  fight  and  meet 
a  warrior’s  death,  his  wife  Creusa  placed  their  young 
son  lulus  in  his  arms.  Lo  !  on  the  child’s  head  there 
played  a  lambent  light  of  flame.  The  mother  and 
iEneas  would  have  sought  to  extinguish  it,  hut  An- 
chises  recognised  in  it  a  sign  from  heaven.  Yirgil 
reads  us  no  special  interpretation,  hut  surely  he  meant 
his  Itoman  readers  to  understand  that  the  seal  of 
sovereignty  was  thus  early  set  upon  the  founder  of  the 
great  house  of  Julius.  Thunder  on  the  left  hand — 
always  the  best  of  auguries — and  a  meteor  flashing 
across  the  sky  and  pointing  out  their  path  to  the  fugi¬ 
tives,  confirm  the  omen. 

So  the  old  man  was  lifted  on  his  son’s  shoulders, 
lulus  walking  by  his  side,  and  Creusa  following  at 
some  distance.  They  were  to  meet  outside  the  city,  at 
the  temple  of  Ceres.  Ancliises  bore  in  his  hands  the 
little  images  of  the  household  gods  (like  Laban’s  tera- 
phim)  and  the  sacred  fire ;  for  tineas  himself,  red- 
handed  from  the  battle,  might  not  touch  them.  But 
soon  the  steps  of  their  enemies  were  heard  in  pursuit ; 
and  Ahieas,  making  his  way  with  his  precious  burden 
through  b}r-paths  to  the  place  of  rendezvous,  reached  it 
only  to  find  that  though  many  other  fugitives,  men, 
women,  and  children,  had  assembled  there,  the  un- 
happy  Creusa  had  not  followed  him.  Cursing  men 
and  gods  alike  in  his  agony,  he  retraced  his  steps  to¬ 
wards  Troy,  and  even  penetrated  unharmed  into  the 


J2NEAS  relates  the  fall  of  TROY.  G3 


wreck  of  Priam’s  palace,  crying  aloud  liis  wife’s  name. 
Suddenly  her  shade  appeared  to  him,  and  hade  him 
not  continue  so  vain  a  search,  or  grieve  for  a  loss 
which  was  hut  the  fulfilment  of  the  counsels  of 
heaven.  She  is  content  to  know  the  future  glories 
which  are  in  store  for  her  husband,  and  thankful  that 
her  own  fate  has  been  death  (we  are  left  to  suppose, 
at  the  hands  of  the  Greeks)  rather  than  captivity  and 
slavery,  tineas  listened,  and  at  once,  obedient  to  the 
recognised  voice  of  the  gods,  whether  for  good  or  evil, 
as  is  his  character  throughout,  yielded  to  his  fate,  and 
hid  himself  with  his  little  band  of  fugitives  in  the 
forests  of  Mount  Ida.  There  they  had  spent  the  win¬ 
ter  months  in  building  themselves  a  little  fleet  of  gal¬ 
leys  out  of  the  abundant  pine-wood ;  and  with  the  early 
summer  launched  upon  the  seas,  wholly  in  ignorance 
of  their  destination,  but  awaiting  confidently  the  guid¬ 
ance  of  heaven  towards  their  promised  resting-place. 


CHAPTER  IIL 


JSNEAS  CONTINUES  HIS  NARRATIVE. 

So,  with  his  father  and  his  infant  son,  and  carrying 
with  Him  the  national  gods  and  sacred  fire  of  Troy, 
iEne«s  and  the  remnant  of  the  Trojans  had  set  forth 
upon  their  voyage  for  the  unknown  shores  of  Hes¬ 
peria — the  “Land  of  the  West.”  Their  first  resting- 
place  was  on  the  friendly  coast  of  Thrace,  where 
H£nea«s  laid  the  foundations  of  a  city  which  was  to 
hear  his  name.  A  strange  adventure  befell  him  there. 
While  he  was  pulling  some  cornel-twigs  which  grew 
out  of  a  mound,  he  found,  to  his  horror,  that  the  ends 
dropped  blood.  A  third  time,  after  prayer  to  avert 
the  omen,  he  plucked  a  sapling,  when  a  hollow  voice 
from  below  warned  him  to  desist  from  such  cruelty. 
It  is  the  grave  of  the  unhappy  Polydorus,  a  young 
son  of  Priam,  whom  his  father,  when  Troy  became 
hard  pressed,  had  sent  away  with  some  of  his  trea¬ 
sures  to  the  safe  keeping  of  the  king  of  Thrace,  who 
for  the  sake  of  these  treasures  had  basely  murdered 
him.  The  cornel-wood  spears  writh  which  he  had  been 
transfixed  had  taken  root,  and  the  blood  had  flowed 


jENeas  continues  ms  narrative.  65 


from  his  body.*  They  did  hut  wait  to  pay  due  hon¬ 
ours  to  the  shade  of  Polydorus,  and  then  hastened 
from  the  accursed  coast.  Landing  next  on  the  sacred 
isle  of  Delos,  they  consulted  the  oracle  there  as  to 
their  future  home.  Apollo  was  as  enigmatical  as  his 
wont — he  bade  them  “  seek  out  their  ancient  mother.” 
They  understood  this  to  be  spoken  of  the  ancient 
cradle  of  their  race ;  Anchises  thought  the  phrase 
pointed  to  Crete,  tbe  birthplace  of  their  ancestral  hero 
Teucrus,  and  where  stood  the  ancient  Mount  Ida, 
from  which  the  mountain  in  the  Troad  derived  its 
name.  And  Idomeneus,  the  king  of  Crete,  who  had 
joined  the  war  against  Troy,  had  been  driven  from  his 
kingdom,  and  left  a  vacant  throne. t  To  Crete  they 
sailed,  and  there  began  to  build  a  city,  to  be  called 
Pergamia,  after  the  citadel  of  Troy.  But  a  year  of 
deadly  pestilence  fell  on  man  and  beast ;  and  in  a 
dream  iEneas  saw  the  angry  gods  of  Troy  standing  by 
him  “  in  the  full  moonlight  that  streamed  through  the 
windows,”  and  warning  him  that  the  promised  land, 
the  ancient  home  of  their  race,  is  not  in  Crete,  but 
Hesperia — the  “Land  of  the  West” — whence  came 
their  forefather  Dardanus.  Then  Anchises  too  re- 

*  Horrible  as  the  legend  is,  Spenser  thought  it  worth  adopt¬ 
ing.  The  Red-Cross  Knight,  to  make  a  garland  for  Fidessa, 
tears  branches  from  the  tree  that  had  once  been  Fradubio. — 
‘  Faery  Queen, ’-I.  ii.  30. 

+  The  story  of  Idomeneus,  according  to  the  old  annotators 
upon  Virgil,  has  a  curious  similarity  to  that  of  Jephthali.  He 
had  vowed  that  if  he  escaped  from  a  storm  at  sea,  he  would 
offer  in  sacrilice  the  tirst  tiling  that  met  him  on  landing.  It 
was  his  son.  A  plague  followed,  and  his  subjects  expelled  him. 

A.  C.  vol.  V.  JS 


66 


THE  jENEID. 


membered  that  such  had  been  the  frequent  warning  of 
Cassandra — the  prophetess  to  whom  none  would  listen. 
They  re-embarked  accordingly.  After  a  storm  of  three 
days  and  three  nights,  when  no  pilot  could  keep  the 
course,  they  were  cast  upon  the  islands  of  the  Harpies  * 
— the  monster  sisters,  half  women  and  half  birds,  foul 
and  loathsome,  who  are  hateful  to  gods  and  men. 
With  them  they  had  to  do  battle  for  the  meal  which 
they  had  spread ;  and  one  of  those  hags,  in  her  wrath, 
prophesied  that  before  they  reached  their  promised 
Hesperia  they  should  be  forced  “  to  eat  their  tables.” 

The  description  of  the  ensuing  voyage,  in  Mr  Con- 
ington’s  tasteful  translation,  reads  like  a  passage  from 
the  ‘  Lord  of  the  Isles/  yet  presents  a  fair  equivalent, 
especially  in  the  last  fine  touch,  to  the  Latin  original : — 

“  The  south  wind  freshens  in  the  sail ; 

We  hurry  o’er  the  tide, 

Where’er  the  helmsman  and  the  gale 
Conspire  our  course  to  guide ; 

Now  rises  o’er  the  foamy  flood 
Zacynthos,  with  its  crown  of  wood, 

*  There  is  a  fine  description  of  these  hags  in  Morris’s  ‘Jason, 
where  the  voyagers 

“  Beheld  the  daughters  of  the  Earth  and  Sea, 

The  dreadful  Snatchers,  who  like  women  were 
Down  to  the  breast,  with  scanty  close  black  hair 
About  their  heads,  and  dim  eyes  ringed  with  red, 

And  bestial  mouths  set  round  with  lips  of  lead. 

But  from  their  gnarled  necks  there  ’gan  to  6pring 
Half  hair,  half  feathers,  and  a  sweeping  wing 
Grew  out  instead  of  arm  on  either  side. 

And  thick  plumes  underneath  the  breast  did  hide 
The  place  where  joined  the  fearful  natures  twain. 


uENEAS  CONTINUES  II IS  NARRATIVE.  67 


Dulichium,  Sam&,  Neritos, 

Whose  rocky  sides  the  waves  emboss ; 

The  crags  of  Ithaca  we  flee, 

Laertes’  rugged  sovereignty; 

Nor  in  our  flight  forget  to  curse 
The  land  that  was  Ulysses’  nurse.” 

They  landed  on  the  coast  of  Leucadia,  at  Actium — the 
scene,  be  it  remembered,  of  Augustus’s  great  naval  vic¬ 
tory  over  Antony  and  Cleopatra.  Here,  the  Trojan  chief 
takes  care  to  say,  he  refreshed  his  weary  crew  with 
iest,  and  celebrated  national  games.  Hay,  he  hung 
up  there,  fugitive  as  he  was,  a  trophy  of  defiance — a 
shield  which  he  had  taken  from  a  Greek  hero,  and 
inscribed  upon  it,  “  The  spoil  of  .Eneas  from  the  con¬ 
quering  Argives.”  So  speaks  the  poet ;  his  Eoman 
audience  would  recognise  the  Actian  games,  celebrated 
there  every  fifth  year  by  order  of  Augustus  in  honour 
of  his  great  victory  ;  and  Eneas’s  trophy  is  not  so  out 
of  place  as  it  might  seem. 

At  Buthrotus,  in  Epirus,  the  wanderers  had  met 
with  old  friends.  Andromache  is  settled  there,  now 
the  wife  of  Helenus,  who,  by  a  strange  vicissitude,  has 
become  the  successor  of  Neoptolemus  in  his  Greek 
province.  There  is  little  of  what  we  call  sentiment  in 
these  “  heroic  ”  times,  especially  as  concerns  “  woman 
and  her  master.”  It  grates  upon  the  feelings  of  the 
reader  who  has  in  mind  the  pathetic  scene  between 
Hector  and  his  wife  in  the  Iliad  of  Homer,  to  be  told 
here  by  the  poet — told,  too,  as  an  ordinary  incident, 
as  in  fact  it  was — that  Andromache  had  become  the 
property  of  the  conqueror  Neoptolemus,  and  that  he, 


68 


THE  JENEID. 


bent  upon  a  marriage  with  Hermione,  daughter  of 
Helen  and  Menelaus,  had  handed  over  his  Trojan  wife 
— “  Hector’s  Andromache,”  as  she  still  pathetically 
calls  herself — to  her  fellow-captive  Helenus,  Hector’s 
brother.  She  tells  her  own  sad  story,  not  without 
some  sense  of  its  wretchedness — 

“  Ay — I  am  living ;  living  still 
Through  all  extremity  of  ill.” 

And  she  envies  the  fate  of  Polyxena,  her  sister-in-law, 
slain  on  the  tomb  of  Achilles.  Still,  she  has  accepted 
her  lot — the  lot  of  so  many  women  in  her  day.  And 
Helenus,  her  present  lord,  is  (if  that  be  any  consola¬ 
tion)  a  sort  of  king ;  for  Orestes  has  killed  Neoptoie- 
mus,  and  Helenus  has  in  some  way  succeeded  him, 
and  built  a  new  “  Pergamus  ”  in  Greece.  So  that 
here,  too,  the  poet  would  tell  us,  Troy  has  conquered 
her  conquerors — a  son  of  Priam  reigns  in  the  territory 
of  Achilles.  But  the  impression  made  upon  an  Eng¬ 
lish  mind  as  to  Andromache’s  fate  is,  after  all,  that  of 
degradation,  and  we  gladly  turn  from  the  page  which 
relates  it. 

Helenus,  like  his  sister  Cassandra,  has  the  gift  of 
prophecy ;  he  had  been  the  great  authority  on  all  such 
matters  to  his  countrymen  during  the  siege.  He  now 
read  the  omens  for  ASneas,  at  his  request ;  all  were 
favourable.  The  wanderers  should  reach  the  promised 
Hesperia  ;  but  that  western  land  was  further  off  than 
they  thought,  and  their  voyage  would  prove  long  and 
weary.  When  they  reached  it,  they  should  find  under 


JEN E AS  CONTINUES  HIS  NARRATIVE .  69 


a  holm-oak  a  white  sow  with  a  litter  of  thirty  young 
ones:  there  the  new  town  was  to  he  built — the  “  Alba 
Longa”  which  has  already  been  forenamed  in  Jupiter’s 
promise  to  Venus.  Helenus  dismissed  them  with  good 
wishes  and  ample  presents  ;  Andromache  making  spe¬ 
cial  gifts  to  the  boy  Ascanius,  whose  age  and  features 
remind  the  mother  of  her  own  lost  Astyanax.  Hineas’f 
words  of  farewell  are  these  : — 

“  Live,  and  be  blest !  ’tis  sweet  to  feel 
Fate’s  book  is  closed  and  under  seal. 

For  us,  alas  !  that  volume  stern 
Has  many  another  page  to  turn. 

Yours  is  a  rest  assured  :  no  more 
Of  ocean  wave  to  task  the  oar; 

No  far  Ausonia  to  pursue, 

Still  flying,  flying  from  the  view.” 

They  set  sail  from  this  friendly  shore,  and  on  the  fol¬ 
lowing  day  caught  their  first  sight  of  the  shores  of  Italy. 
But  though  they  landed  and  offered  sacrifice  to  Juno^  as 
Helenas  had  bid  them  do,  they  knew  that  this  was  not 
the  spot  on  which  they  were  to  settle,  and  soon  put  to 
sea  again.  They  passed  the  bay  of  Tarentum,  escaping 
the  dangers  of  Charybdis,  and  landed  under  iEtna, 
on  the  shore  where  dwell  the  Cyclops — the  one-eyed 
race  of  giants,  who,  according  to  one  legend,  labour  in 
their  underground  forges  for  Vulcan,  the  divine  smith. 
Here  the  poet  introduces  us  to  a  direct  reminiscence 
of  the  wanderings  of  Ulysses.  He  adopts  the  whole 
of  Homer’s  story — the  visit  of  the  Greek  chief  and  his 
comrades  to  the  cave  of  the  giant  Polyphemus,  hia 


70 


THE  JZNEID. 


cannibal  meal,  and  the  vengeance  which  Ulysses  took 
upon  him  by  burning  out  his  eye.*  iEneas  relates 
how  he  met  there  with  one  of  Ulysses’  crew,  who  by 
some  mischance  had  been  left  behind,  and  who  had 
hid  himself  three  months  (so  close  is  the  date  of  the 
two  voyages)  from  the  clutches  of  Polyphemus  and  his 
fellow-Cy clops.  They  took  the  wretched  fugitive  on 
beard,  and  put  to  sea  again  just  in  time  to  escape  the 
blind  monster,  who  waded  into  the  sea  after  them  at 
the  sound  of  the  oars.  They  skirted  the  coast  of 
Sicily,  and  at  Drepanum  the  chief  had  buried  his 
father  Anchises.  It  was  on  casting  off  from  Sicily 
tint  be  had  been  driven  by  the  storm  on  this  un- 
kn  >wn  coast  of  Libya,  on  the  spot  soon  to  be  famous 
em  ugh  as  the  site  of  Carthage. 

“  So  king  JEneas  told  his  tale. 

While  all  beside  were  still — 

Rehearsed  the  fortunes  of  his  sail, 

And  Fate’s  mvsterious  will : 

i 

Then  to  its  close  his  legend  brought, 

And  gladly  took  the  rest  he  sought,’* 

*  See  Homer’s  Odyssey,  p.  69. 


CHAPTER  IY. 


DIDO. 

The  Carthaginian  queen  has  been  an  eager  listener  to 
^Eneas’s  story.  She  is  love-stricken — suddenly,  and 
irremediably.  The  poet  has  thought  it  necessary  to 
explain  the  fact  by  the  introduction  of  the  god  of  love 
himself,  whom,  in  the  shape  of  the  young  Ascanius,  she 
has  been  nursing  on  her  bosom.  The  passion  itself  is 
looked  upon  by  the  poet — and  as  we  must  suppose  by 
his  audience — as  such  a  palpable  weakness,  that  even  in 
a  woman  (and  it  is  to  women  almost  exclusively,  in 
ancient  classical  fiction,  that  these  sudden  affections 
are  attributed)  it  was  thought  necessary  to  account  for 
it  by  the  intervention  of  some  more  than  human  in¬ 
fluence.  Either  human  nature  has  developed,  or  our 
modern  poets  understand  its  workings  better.  Shake¬ 
speare  makes  the  angry  Brabantio  accuse  the  Moor  of 
having  stolen  his  daughter’s  love 

“  By  spells  and  medicines  bought  of  mountebanks ;  ” 

but  Othello  himself  has  a  far  simpler  and  more  natural 
explanation  of  the  matter — 


THE  JEN  El  D. 


72 

11  She  loved  me  for  the  dangers  I  had  passed  ; — 

This  only  is  the  witchcraft  I  have  used.” 

So  it  has  been  with  Dido.  But  she  is  terribly  ashamed 
of  her  own  feelings.  She  finds  relief  in  disclosing 
them  to  a  very  natural  confidant — her  sister  Anna. 
She  confesses  her  weakness,  but  avows  at  the  same 
time  a  determination  not  to  yield  to  it.  The  stranger 
has  interested  her  deeply,  after  a  fashion  which  has  not 
touched  her  since  the  death  of  her  husband  Sichseus 

“  Were  not  my  purpose  fixed  as  fate 

With  none  in  wedlock’s  band  to  mate, — 

•  •  *  •  •  • 

Were  bed  and  bridal  aught  but  pain, — 

Perchance  I  had  been  weak  again  ” 

But  her  sister — suiting  her  counsels,  as  all  confidants 
are  apt  to  do,  to  the  secret  wishes  rather  than  to  the 
professions  of  Dido — encourages  the  passion.  Per¬ 
petual  widowhood  has  a  romantic  sound,  but  is  not,  in 
Anna’s  opinion,  a  desirable  estate.  Besides,  in  this 
newly-planted  colony,  surrounded  as  they  are  by  fierce 
African  tribes,  an  alliance  with  these  Trojan  strangers 
will  be  a  tower  of  strength.  The  stout  arm  of  such 
a  husband  as  iEneas  is  much  needed  by  a  widowed 
queen.  His  visit — so  Anna  thinks — is  nothing  less 
than  providential — 

“’Twas  Heaven  and  Juno’s  grace  that  bore, 

I  ween,  these  Trojans  to  our  shore.” 

By  all  means  let  them  detain  their  illustrious  visitor 
with  them  as  long  as  possible — his  ships  require  ie* 


DID  0. 


73 


fitting  and  his  crews  refreshment — and  the  result  will 
not  he  doubtful. 

The  advice  suits  with  the  queen’s  new  mood  too 
well  to  he  rejected.  Together  the  sisters  offer  pious 
sacrifices  to  the  gods — to  Juno  especially,  as  the 
goddess  of  marriage — to  give  their  sanction  to  the 
hoped-for  alliance.  The  restless  feelings  of  the  en¬ 
amoured  woman  are  described  in  one  of  the  finest  and 
most  admired  passages  of  the  poem  : — 

“  E’en  as  a  deer  whom  from  afar 
A  swain,  in  desultory  war, 

Where  Cretan  woods  are  thick, 

Has  pierced,  as  ’mid  the  trees  she  lies, 

And,  all  unknowing  of  his  prize, 

Has  left  the  dart  to  stick  : 

She  wanders  lawn  and  forest  o’er, 

While  the  fell  shaft  still  drinks  her  gore  * 

Now  through  the  city  of  her  pride 
She  walks,  iEneas  at  her  side, 

Displays  the  stores  of  Sidon’s  trade. 

And  stately  homes  already  made  : 

Begins,  hut  stops  she  knows  not  why, 

And  lets  the  imperfect  utterance  die. 

Now,  as  the  sunlight  wears  away, 

She  seeks  the  feast  of  yesterday, 

Inquires  once  more  of  Troy’s  eclipse, 

And  hangs  once  more  upon  his  lips  ; 

Then,  when  the  guests  have  gone  their  ways. 

And  the  dim  moon  withdraws  her  rays, 

*  u  To  the  which  place  a  poor  sequestered  stag. 

That  from  the  hunter’s  aim  had  ta’en  a  hurt. 

Had  come  to  languish.” 

— Shakesfeajie,  ‘  As  you  Like  it/  iL  1. 


74 


THE  sENEID. 


V 


'A 


And  setting  stars  to  slumber  call, 

Alone  she  mourns  in  that  lone  hall, 
Clasps  the  dear  couch  where  late  he  lay, 
Beholds  him,  hears  him  far  away ; 

Or  keeps  Ascanius  on  her  knees, 

And  in  the  son  the  father  sees, 

Might  she  but  steal  one  peaceful  hour 
From  love’s  ungovernable  power. 

No  more  the  growing  towers  arise, 

No  more  in  martial  exercise 

The  youth  engage,  make  strong  the  fort, 

Or  shape  the  basin  to  a  port.” 


( 


The  powers  of  Olympus  here  come  again  upon  the 
scene.  Juno  sees,  not  without  a  secret  satisfaction, 
the  prospect  of  an  entanglement  between  iEneas  and 
Dido,  which  may  detain  these  hated  Trojans  in  Africa, 
and  so  prevent  their  settlement  and  dominion  in  Italy. 
So  Carthage,  and  not  the  Rome  of  the  future,  may  yet 
be  the  mistress  of  the  world.  She  addresses  herself  at 
once  to  the  goddess  of  love — not  without  a  sneer  at 


the  success  of  her  snares  in  poor  Dido’s  case;  a  sorry 
triumph  it  is  indeed — two  divinities  pitted  against  a 
weak  woman  !  But  come — suppose  in  this  matter 
they  agree  to  act  in  concert ;  let  there  be  a  union  be¬ 
tween  the  two  nations,  and  let  Carthage  be  the  seat 
of  their  joint  power ;  its  citizens  shall  pay  equal  hon¬ 
ours  to  the  queen  of  heaven  and  the  queen  of  love. 
Venus  understands  perfectly  well  that  Juno’s  motive 
is  at  any  cost  to  prevent  the  foundation  of  Rome ;  but, 
having  a  clearer  vision  (we  must  presume)  than  her 
great  rival  of  the  probable  results,  she  agrees  to  the 
terns.  There  is  to  be  a  hunting-party  on  the  morrow, 


DIDO. 


75 


and  Juno  will  take  care  that  opportunity  shall  he  given 
for  the  furtherance  of  Dido’s  passion.  The  royal  hunt 
is  again  a  striking  picture,  almost  mediseval  in  its  rich 
colouring  : — 

“  The  morn  meantime  from  ocean  rose  : 

Forth  from  the  gates  with  daybreak  goes 
The  silvan  regiment : 

Thin  nets  are  there,  and  spears  of  steel, 

And  there  Massylian  riders  wheel, 

And  dogs  of  keenest  scent. 

Before  the  chamber  of  her  state 
Long  time  the  Punic  nobles  wait 
The  appearing  of  the  queen  : 

With  gold  and  purple  housings  fit 
Stands  her  proud  steed,  and  champs  the  hit 
His  foaming  jaws  between. 

At  length  with  long  attendant  train 
She  comes  :  her  scarf  of  Tyrian  grain,* 

With  broidered  border  decked  : 

Of  gold  her  quiver  :  knots  of  gold 
Confine  her  hair  :  her  vesture’s  fold 
By  golden  clasp  is  checked. 

The  Trojans  and  lulus  gay 
In  glad  procession  take  their  way. 
iEneas,  comeliest  of  the  throng, 

Joins  their  proud  ranks,  and  steps  along, 

As  when  from  Lycia’s  wintry  airs 
To  Delos’  isle  Apollo  fares  ; 

The  Agathyrsian,  Dry  op,  Crete, 

In  dances  round  his  altar  meet : 

He  on  the  heights  of  Cynthus  moves, 

And  binds  his  hair’s  loose  flow 

*  This  was  the  dye  procured  from  the  shell -fish  called  murex — 
especially  costly,  because  each  fish  contained  but  a  single  drop 
of  the  prec:ous  tincture. 


THE  jENEID. 


With  cincture  of  the  leaf  he  loves : 

Behind  him  sounds  his  how ; — 

So  firm  ^Eneas’  graceful  tread, 

So  bright  the  glories  round  his  head. 


But  young  Ascanius  on  his  steed 
With  boyish  ardour  glows, 

And  now  in  ecstacy  of  speed 
He  passes  these,  now  those  : 

For  him  too  peaceful  and  too  tame 
The  pleasure  of  the  hunted  game  : 

He  longs  to  sfee  the  foaming  boar, 

Or  hear  the  tawny  lion’s  roar. 

Meantime,  loud  thunder-peals  resound, 
And  hail  and  rain  the  sky  confound : 

And  Tyrian  chiefs  and  sons  of  Troy, 

And  Venus’  care,  the  princely  boy, 

Seek  each  his  shelter,  winged  with  dread. 
While  torrents  from  the  hills  run  red. 
Driven  haply  to  the  same  retreat, 

The  Dardan  chief  and  Dido  meet. 

Then  Earth,  the  venerable  dame, 

And  Juno,  give  the  sign  : 

Heaven  lightens  with  attesting  flame, 
And  bids  its  torches  shine, 

And  from  the  summit  of  the  peak 
The  nymphs  shrill  out  the  nuptial  shriek 

That  Jay  she  first  began  to  die  ; 

That  day  first  taught  her  to  defy 
The  public  tongue,  the  public  eye. 

No  secret  love  is  Dido’s  aim  : 

She  calls  it  marriage  now ;  such  name 
She  chooses  to  conceal  her  shame.” 


DIDO. 


77 


A  rejected  suitor  of  the  Carthaginian  queen, — Iar- 
bas,  king  of  Gmtulia, — hears  the  news  amongst  the  rest. 
He  is  a  reputed  son  of  Jupiter ;  and  now,  furious  at 
seeing  this  wanderer  from  Troy — “this  second  Paris,” 
as  he  calls  him — preferred  to  himself,  he  appeals  for 
vengeance  to  his  Olympian  parent.  The  appeal  is 
heard,  and  Mercury  is  despatched  to  remind  iEneas  of 
his  high  destinies,  which  he  is  forgetting  in  this  dalliance 
at  Carthage.  If  he  has  lost  all  ambition  for  himself, 
let  him  at  least  remember  the  rights  of  his  son 
Ascanius,  which  he  is  thus  sacrificing  to  the  indulgence 
of  his  own  wayward  passions.  The  immortal  messenger 
finds  the  Trojan  chief  busied  in  planning  the  extension 
of  the  walls  and  streets  of  the  new  city  which  he  has 
already  adopted  as  his  home.  He  delivers  his  message 
briefly  and  emphatically,  and  vanishes.  Thus  recalled 
to  a  full  sense  of  his  false  position,  .ZEneas  is  at  first 
horror-struck  and  confounded.  How  to  disobey  the 
direct  commands  of  Heaven,  and  run  counter  to  the.L 
oracles  of  fate ;  how,  on  the  other  hand,  to  break  his 
faith  with  Dido,  and  ungratefully  betray  the  too  con¬ 
fiding  love  of  his  hostess  and  benefactress  ;  how  even 
to  venture  to  hint  to  her  a  word  of  parting,  and  how  to 
escape  the  probable  vengeance  of  the  Carthaginian 
people; — all  these  considerations  crowd  into  his  mind, 
and  perplex  him  terribly.  On  the  main  point,  now- 
ever,  his  resolution  is  soon  taken.  He  will  obey  the 
mandate  of  the  gods,  at  any  cost.  He  summons  the 
most  trusted  of  his  comrades,  and  bids  them  make  secret 
preparations  to  set  sail  once  more  in  quest  of  their 
home  in  Italy.  He  promises  himself  that  he  will 


78 


THE  HZNEID. 


either  find  or  make  some  oppportunity  of  breaking  the 
news  of  his  departure  to  Dido. 

This  is  the  turning-point  of  the  poem  •  and  here  it 
is  that  the  interest  to  a  modern  reader,  so  far  as  the 
mere  plot  of  the  story  is  concerned,  is  sadly  marred  by 
the  way  in  which  the  hero  thus  cuts  himself  off  from 
all  our  sympathies.  His  most  ingenious  apologists — • 
and  he  has  found  many — appeal  to  us  in  vain.  Upon 
the  audience  or  the  readers  of  his  own  time,  no  doubt, 
the  effect  might  have  been  different.  To  the  critics 
of  Augustus’s  court,  love — or  what  they  understood  by 
it — was  a  mere  weakness  in  the  hero.  The  call  which 
Heaven  had  conveyed  to  him  was  to  found  the  great 
empire  of  the  future  ;  and  because  he  obeys  the  call 
at  the  expense  of  his  tenderest  feelings,  the  poet  gives 
him  always  his  distinctive  epithet  —  the  “  pious  ” 
H^neas.  The  word  “  pious,”  it  must  be  remembered, 
implies  in  the  Latin  the  recognition  of  all  duties  to 
one’s  country  and  one’s  parents,  as  well  as  to  the  gods. 
And  in  all  these  senses  iEneas  would  deserve  it.  But 
to  an  English  mind,  the  a  piety  ”  which  pleads  the  will 
of  Heaven  as  an  excuse  for  treachery  to  a  woman,  only 
adds  a  deeper  hue  of  infamy  to  the  transaction.  It 

“  Doth  make  the  fault  the  worse  by  the  excuse.” 

But  our  story  must  not  wait  for  us  to  discuss  too 
curiously  the  morals  of  the  hero.  iEneas  has  thought 
to  make  his  preparations  without  the  knowledge  of  the 
queen — while  she 

“  Still  dreams  her  happy  dream,  nor  thinks 
That  ought  can  break  those  golden  links.” 


DIDO. 


79 


But,  as  the  poet  goes  on  to  say,  “  Who  can  cheat  the 
eyes  of  love?”  Dido  soon  learns  his  change  of  purpose, 
and  taxes  him  openly  with  his  baseness  and  ingratitude. 
The  whole  of  this  fourth  book  of  the  iEneid — “  The 
Passion  of  Dido,”  as  it  has  been  called — is  of  a  very 
high  order  of  tragic  pathos.  The  queen  is  by  turns 
furious  and  pathetic )  now  she  hurls  menaces  and 
curses  against  her  false  lover,  now  she  condescends  to 
pitiable  entreaty.  The  Trojan  chief's  defence,  such 
as  it  is,  is  that  he  had  never  meant  to  stay.  He  is 
bound,  the  pilgrim  of  Heaven,  for  Latium.  His  father 
Anchises  is  warning  him  continually  in  the  visions  of 
the  night  not  to  linger  here  :  and  now  the  messenger 
of  the  gods  in  person  has  come  to  chide  this  fond 
delay. 

The  grand  storm  of  wrath  in  which  the  injured 
queen  bursts  upon  him  in  reply  has  severely  taxed  the 
powers  of  all  Virgil’s  English  translators.  They  seem 
to  have  felt  themselves  no  more  of  a  match  for  “  the 
fury  of  a  woman  scorned  ”  than  iEneas  was.  Cer¬ 
tainly  they  all  fail,  more  or  less,  to  give  the  fire  and 
bitterness  of  the  original.  The  heroics  of  Dryden 
suit  it  better,  perhaps,  than  any  other  measure  : — 

“  False  as  thou  art,  and  more  than  false,  forsworn  ! 

Not  sprung  from  noble  blood,  nor  goddess-born, 

But  hewn  from  hardened  entrails  of  a  rock, 

And  rough  Hyrcanian  tigers  gave  thee  suck ! 

Why  should  I  fawn  ?  what  have  I  worse  to  fear  ? 

Did  he  once  look,  or  lend  a  listening  ear, 

Sigh  when  I  sobbed,  or  shed  one  kindly  tear  ? 

All  symptoms  of  a  base  ungrateful  mind — 

So  foul,  that,  which  is  worse,  ’tis  hard  to  find. 


so 


THE  sENEID. 


Of  man’s  injustice  wliy  should  I  complain  1 
The  gods,  and  Jove  himself,  behold  in  vain 
Triumphant  treason,  yet  no  thunder  flies  ; 

Nor  Juno  views  my  wrongs  "with  equal  eyes: 
Faithless  is  earth,  and  faithless  are  the  skies  ! 
Justice  is  fled,  and  truth  is  now  no  more. 

I  saved  the  shipwrecked  exile  on  my  shore  : 

With  needful  food  his  hungry  Trojans  fed: 

I  took  the  traitor  to  my  throne  and  bed : 

Fool  that  I  w'as ! — ’tis  little  to  repeat 

The  rest — I  stored  and  rigged  his  ruined  fleet. 

I  rave,  I  rave  !  A  god’s  command  he  pleads  ! 

And  makes  heaven  accessory  to  his  deeds. 

Now  Lycian  lots;  and  now  the  Delian  god; 

Now  Hermes  is  employed  from  Jove’s  abode, 

To  warn  him  hence ;  as  if  the  peaceful  state 
Of  heavenly  powers  were  touched  with  human  fate ! 
But  go  :  thy  flight  no  longer  I  detain — 

Go  seek  thy  promised  kingdom  through  the  main! 
Yet,  if  the  heavens  will  hear  my  pious  vow, 

The  faithless  waves,  not  half  so  false  as  thou, 

Or  secret  sands,  shall  sepulchres  afford 
To  thy  proud  vessels  and  their  perjured  lord. 

Then  shalt  thou  call  on  injured  Dido’s  name  : 

Dido  shall  come,  in  a  black  sulph’ry  flame, 

When  death  has  once  dissolved  her  mortal  frame, 
Shall  smile  to  see  the  traitor  vainly  weep  ; 

Her  angry  ghost,  arising  from  the  deep, 

Shall  haunt  thee  waking,  and  disturb  thy  sleep. 

At  least  my  shade  thy  punishment  shall  know ; 
And  fame  shall  spread  the  pleasing  news  below.” 


But  in  this  passage,  if  nowhere  else,  a  French 
translator  has  surpassed  all  his  English  rivals.  Pos¬ 
sibly  the  fervid  passion  of  the  scene,  worked  up  as  it 


DIDO. 


81 


is  almost  to  exaggeration,  is  more  akin  to  the  genius 
of  the  French  language.* 

*  Delille’s  fine  translation  of  this  passage  is  so  little  known 
to  English  readers  that  it  may  well  find  room  in  a  note  : — 

“  Non — tu  n’es  point  le  fils  de  la  mere  d’Amour  ; 

Au  sang  de  Dardanus  tu  ne  dois  point  le  jour  ; 

N ’impute  point  aux  dieux  la  naissance  d’un  traitre — 

Non,  du  sang  d’heros  un  raonstre  n’a  pu  naitre ; 

Non. — Le  Caucase  affreux,  t’engendrant  en  fureur, 

De  ses  plus  durs  rochers  fit  ton  barbare  coeur, 

Et  du  tigre  inhumain  la  compagne  sauvage. 

Cruel !  avec  son  lait  t’a  fait  sucer  sa  rage. 

Car  eafin  qui  m’arrete  ?  Apres  ses  durs  refus, 

Apres  tant  de  mepris,  qu’attendrais-je  de  plus  ? 

S’est-il  laisse  flecliir  a  mes  cris  douloureux  ? 

A-t-il  au  mains  daigne  tourner  vers  moi  les  yeux  ? 
Prosternee  a  ses  pieds,  plaintive,  suppliante, 

N’a-t-il  pas  d’un  front  calme  ecoute  son  amanfce  ? 

•  •••••• 

Sans  secours,  sans  asile,  errant  de  mers  en  mers, 

Par  les  flots  en  courroux  jete  dans  nos  deserts, 

Je  l’ai  re<?u,  l’ingrat !  des  fureurs  de  l’orage 
J’ai  sauve  ses  sujets,  ses  vaisseaux  de  naufrage, 

Je  lui  donne  mon  coeur,  men  empire,  ma  main  : 

O  fureur,  et  voila  que  ce  monstre  inliumain 
Ose  imputer  aux  dieux  son  horrible  parjure, 

Me  parle  et  d’Apollon,  et  d’oracle,  et  d’augure  ! 

Pour  presser  son  depart,  l’ambassadeur  des  dieux 
Est  descendu  vers  lui  de  la  voute  des  cieux  : 

Dignes  soins,  en  effet,  de  ces  maltres  du  monde  ! 

Eu  effet,  sa  grandeur  trouble  leur  paix  profonde ! 

— C’en  est  assez  ;  va,  pars  ;  je  ne  te  retiens  pas ; 

Va  chercher  loin  de  moi  je  ne  sais  quels  etats  : 

S’il  est’  encore  an  dieu  redoubtable  aux  ingrats, 

J’espere  que  bientot,  pour  prix  d’un  si  grand  crime, 

Brise  contre  un  ecueil,  plonge  dans  un  abime, 

Tu  pairas  mes  malheurs,  perfide  !  et  de  Didon 
Ta  voix,  ta  voix  plaintive  invoquera  le  mon.” 

A.  c.  vol.  V. 


F 


82 


THE  JEN E ID. 


We  cannot,  however,  do  better  than  return  to  Mr 
Conington’s  version  for  the  sequel : — 


“  Her  speech  half  done,  she  breaks  away, 
And  sickening  shuns  the  light  of  day, 
And  tears  her  from  his  gaze  ; 

While  he,  with  thousand  things  to  say, 
Still  falters  and  delays  : 

Her  servants  lift  the  sinking  fair, 

And  to  her  marble  chamber  bear  ” 


The  Trojans  prepare  to  depart ;  but  the  enamoured 
queen  makes  one  more  despairing  effort  to  detain  her 
faithless  guest.  She  sends  her  sister  to  ask  at  least 
for  some  short  space  of  delay — until  she  shall  have 
schooled  herself  to  bear  his  loss.  Hineas  is  obdurate 
in  his  “piety.”  Then  her  last  resolve  is  taken.  She 
cheats  her  sister  into  the  belief  that  she  has  found 
some  spells  potent  enough  to  restrain  the  truant  lover. 
Part  of  the  charm  is  that  his  armour,  and  all  that 
had  belonged  to  him  while  in  her  company,  must  be 
consumed  by  fire.  So  a  lofty  pile  is  built  in  the 
palace-court ;  but  it  is  to  be  the  funeral  pile  of  Dido. 
As  she  looks  forth  from  the  turret  of  her  palace  at  day¬ 
break,  she  sees  the  ships  of  iEneas  already  far  in  the 
offing ;  for,  warned  again  by  Mercury  that  there  will 
be  risk  of  his  departure  being  prevented  by  force  if  he 
delays,  he  has  already  set  sail  under  cover  of  the  night. 
Por  a  moment  the  queen  thinks  of  ordering  her  seamen 
to  give  chase ;  but  it  is  a  mere  passing  phase  of  her 
despair.  She  contents  herself  with  imprecating  an 
eternal  enmity  between  his  race  and  hers — fulfilled,  aa 


DIDO. 


83 


the  poet  means  us  to  bear  in  mind,  in  the  long  and 
bloody  wars  between  Eome  and  Carthage. 

u  And,  Tyrians,  you  through  time  to  come 
His  seed  with  deathless  hatred  chase : 

Be  that  your  gift  to  Dido’s  tomb  : 

No  love,  no  league  ’twixt  race  and  race. 

Bise  from  my  ashes,  scourge  of  crime, 

Born  to  pursue  the  Dardan  horde 
To-day,  to-morrow,  through  all  time, 

Oft  as  our  hands  can  wield  the  sword  : 

Fight  shore  with  shore,  fight  sea  with  sea, 

Fight  all  that  are,  or  e’er  shall  be  !  ” 

With  a  master’s  hand  the  poet  enhances  the  glories 
of  his  country  by  this  prophetic  introduction  of  the 
terrible  Hannibal.  The  peaceful  empire  of  Csesar, 
before  whom  East  and  West  bow,  is  thrown  into  the 
broadest  light  by  reference  to  those  early  days  when 
Home  lay  almost  at  the  mercy  of  her  implacable  enemy 

“  Then,  maddening  over  crime,  the  queen 

With  bloodshot  eyes,  and  sanguine  streaks 
Fresh  painted  on  her  quivering  cheeks, 

And  wanning  o’er  with  death  foreseen, 

Through  inner  portals  wildly  fares, 

Scales  the  high  pile  with  swift  ascent, 

Takes  up  the  Dardan  sword  and  bares— 

Sad  gift,  for  different  uses  meant. 

She  eyed  the  robes  writh  wistful  look, 

And  pausing,  thought  awhile  and  wept ; 

Then  pressed  her  to  the  couch  and  spoke 
Her  last  good-niglit  or  ere  she  slept. 

*  Sweet  relics  of  a  time  of  love, 

When  fate  and  heaven  were  kind. 


84 


THE  JENEID. 


Receive  my  life-blood,  and  remove 
These  torments  of  the  mind. 

My  life  is  lived,  and  I  have  played 
The  part  that  Fortune  gave, 

And  now  I  pass,  a  queenly  shade, 

Majestic  to  the  grave. 

A  glorious  city  I  have  built, 

Have  seen  my  walls  ascend  ; 

Chastised  for  blood  of  husband  spilt, 

A  brother,  yet  no  friend  : 

Blest  lot !  yet  lacked  one  blessing  more, 

That  Troy  had  never  touched  my  shore  !  ’  ” 

So  she  mounts  the  funeral  pile,  and  stabs  herself 
with  the  Trojan’s  sword,  her  sister  Anna  coming  upon 
the  scene  only  in  time  to  receive  the  parting  breath. 


CHAPTER  V. 


THE  FUNERAL  GAMES. 

Far  off  at  sea,  ^Eneas  and  Ms  crew  see  the  flames  go 
up  from  Dido’s  palace. 

“  What  cause  has  lit  so  fierce  a  flame 
They  know  not ;  but  the  pangs  of  shame 
From  great  love  wronged,  and  what  despair 
Will  make  a  baffled  woman  dare, — 

All  this  they  know  ;  and  knowing  tread 
The  paths  of  presage  vague  and  dread  ” 

Not  yet  is  their  course  clear  for  Italy.  A  storm 
comes  on,  and  they  make  for  refuge  towards  the 
friendly  coast  of  Sicily,  and  run  their  vessels  into  a 
sheltered  hay  under  Mount  Eryx.  Their  return  is 
gladly  welcomed  by  their  late  host,  Acestes,  who 
receives  the  wanderers,  as  before,  with  princely  hos¬ 
pitality,  still  mindful  of  his  own  Trojan  blood.  It 
chances  that  the  morrow  is  the  anniversary  of  tho 
burial  of  Anchises ;  and  iEneas,  summoning  an  open- 
air  council  of  his  crews,  announces  to  them  his  inten¬ 
tion  of  commemorating  his  father  by  a  solemn  public 


86 


THE  JLNEID. 


sacrifice.  It  is  a  day  which — wherever  his  lot  may 
he  hereafter  cast — he  will  ever  keep  holy;  and  not 
without  some  providential  guidance,  as  he  deems,  has 
this  opportunity  been  afforded  him,  by  his  being 
driven  hack  to  Sicily,  of  celebrating  it  on  friendly 
soil  under  the  auspices  of  his  kinsman.  There  shall 
he  nine  days  of  sacrifice  and  prayer ;  then  shall  follow 
funeral  games,  with  prizes  at  his  own  cost. 

The  sacrificial  oxen  are  duly  slain,  and  the  libations 

poured  at  the  tomb  of  Anchises ;  the  howls  of  new 

milk,  of  wine,  and  of  blood,  and  the  fresh  spring 

flowers,  which  were  reckoned  acceptable  offerings  to 

the  dead.  Then  HCneas  lifts  his  voice  in  prayer  to 

the  shade  of  the  hero,  and  a  startling  omen  follows 

the  invocation.  A  serpent,  dappled  with  green  and 

gold,  glides  out  of  the  tomb,  tastes  of  the  offerings, 

and  disappears  again.  iEneas  sees  in  the  creature  the 

tutelary  genius  of  the  spot,  or,  it  may  be,  the  special 

attendant  of  his  father’s  shade.  In  either  case,  he 

*  * 

accepts  its  appearance  as  a  good  omen,  and  joyfully 
redoubles  his  devotions. 

In  the  funeral  games  which  follow,  the  Roman  poet 
no  doubt  had  two  models  in  his  mind.  He  was  ambi¬ 
tious  to  reproduce,  or  perhaps  to  rival,  in  Roman  song, 
for  an  audience  of  his  countrymen,  the  grand  descrip¬ 
tion  which  his  great  master  Homer  had  given  of  the 
games  which  Achilles  celebrates  in  honour  of  the  dead 
Patroclus.  He  wished  also,  there  can  be  little  doubt, 
to  pay  a  poet’s  best  compliment  to  his  imperial  patron,  ]/ 
and  to  weave  into  his  song,  with  such  licence  of  einbel* 
lishment  as  is  allowed  to  all  poets,  a  record  of  thos« 


THE  FUNERAL  GAMES. 


87 


funeral  games  which  Augustus  had  instituted  in  re¬ 
membrance  of  his  uncle,  the  great  Dictator  Julius. 
But  Yirgil  is  here  very  far  from  being  a  mere  copyist 
from  Homer.  In  lieu  of  the  chariot-race,  the  great 
feature  in  the  games  of  the  Iliad,  he  has  given  us  a 
galley-race,  the  incidents  of  which  are  quite  as  excit¬ 
ing,  and  to  our  modern  comprehensions  more  thoroughly 
intelligible. 

The  day  fixed  for  the  great  spectacle  has  arrived, 
and  the  Sicilians  from  far  and  near  flock  to  it,  some  to 
take  part  in  the  games,  and  all  to  see.  First  of  the 
various  contests  comes  the  galley-race,  for  which  four 
of  the  fastest  vessels  in  the  fleet  have  entered — the 
Shark,  the  Centaur,  the  Chimsera,  and  the  Scylla; 
each  displaying,  no  doubt,  as  its  figure-head,  a  repre¬ 
sentation  of  the  monster  whose  name  it  bore.  Their 
captains  were  men  well  known.  Humouring  a  gene¬ 
alogical  fancy  of  his  Roman  countrymen  for  tracing 
their  descent  to  some  one  of  the  old  Trojan  colonists, 
— much  after  the  fashion  of  English  houses  who  try 
to  find  an  ancestor  on  the  Roll  of  Battle  Abbey, — the 
poet  tells  us  that  three  at  least  out  of  the  four  gave 
their  names  in  due  time  to  patrician  houses  in  Rome. 
Mnestheus,  who  commands  the  Shark,  left  his  name 
(certainly  with  considerable  modification)  to  the  gens 
or  clan  of  Memmius.  The  captain  of  the  Centaur, 
Sergestus,  is  in  like  manner  the  reputed  ancestor  of 
the  Sergian  clan,  as  Cloanthus,  who  sails  the  Scylla,  is 
of  the  Cluentian.  Only  Gyas,  the  captain  of  the 
Chimaera,  a  bulky  craft,  “as  big  as  a  town,”  has  no 
such  genealogical  honours  assigned  him. 


88 


THE  JEN  El  D. 


The  course  lies  out  in  the  hay,  and  the  competing 
vessels  are  to  round  a  rock,  covered  at  high  tides,  on 
which  an  oak  has  been  set  up,  leaves  and  all,  to  serve 
as  a  mark  for  the  steersmen.  They  take  up  their 
positions  by  lot,  and  await  the  signal,  to  be  given 
by  sound  of  trumpet.  The  picture  of  the  start  would 
suit,  with  wonderfully  little  alteration,  the  description 
of  a  modern  University  boat-race  : — 

“  And  now  on  rowing-bench  they  sit, 

Bend  to  the  oar  their  arms  close  knit, 

And  straining  watch  the  sign  to  start, 

While  generous  trembling  fills  each  heart, 

And  thirst  for  victory. 

Then,  at  the  trumpet’s  piercing  sound, 

All  from  their  stations  onward  bound  : 

Upsoars  to  heaven  the  oarsmen’s  shout, 

The  upturned  billows  froth  and  spout. 

•  *  •  •  • 

With  plaudits  loud  and  clamorous  zeal 
Echoes  the  woodland  round  ; 

The  pent  shores  roll  the  thunder-peal, 

The  stricken  hills  resound.” 

[Our  modern  oarsmen  would  certainly  be  wiser  in  this, 
that  they  would  reserve  their  own  breath  (of  which 
they  would  find  considerable  need  towards  the  end  of 
the  race),  and  leave  the  whole  of  the  shouting  to  be 
done  by  enthusiastic  spectators.] 

“  First  G}ras  issues  from  the  rout, 

And  holds  the  foremost  place  : 

Cloanthus  next ;  his  oarsmen  row 
More  featly,  but  his  bark  is  slow, 

And  checks  him  in  the  race. 


THE  FUNERAL  GAMES . 


89 


Behind  at  equal  distance  strain 
Centaur  and  Shark  the  lead  to  gain  ; 

And  now  the  Shark  darts  forth,  and  now 
The  Centaur  lias  advanced  her  bow ; 

And  now  the  twain  move  side  by  side, 

Their  long  keels  trailing  through  the  tide” 

So  goes  the  race,  until  the  galleys  near  the  rock  which 
they  have  to  round.  Gjras  sees  that  his  steersman, 
from  over  caution,  is  giving  it  too  wide  a  berth,  and 
that  there  is  danger  of  the  Scylla,  more  venturous, 
cutting  in  between.  He  shouts  an  order  to  keep 
closer  in  ;  but  the  old  seaman  is  somewhat  obstinate, 
and  it  is  very  soon  too  late.  Cloanthus  has  seen  his 
advantage,  shot  round  the  rock  at  very  close  quarters, 
and  now  leaves  Gyas  in  the  Chimsera  behind.  Burn¬ 
ing  with  fury,  Gyas  turns  on  his  steersman,  and 
pitches  him  into  the  sea.  Happily  he  can  swim,  and 
the  rock  is  close  at  hand  ;  he  climbs  upon  it,  and  sits 
there  dripping,  to  the  considerable  amusement  of  the 
spectators,  who,  like  all  lookers-on,  seem  unmercifully 
alive  to  the  ludicrous  element  in  any  disaster 

Deprived  of  her  helmsman,  the  huge  Chimaera  loses 
her  course  for  a  moment,  and  the  two  galleys  in  the 
rear  are  quick  to  take  advantage  of  it.  The  Shark 
and  Centaur  are  now  rounding  the  rock  almost  side  by 
side.  But  Sergestus,  in  his  eagerness  not  to  lose  an 
inch  of  advantage,  emulates  the  manoeuvre  of  the  Scylla 
too  closely,  and  takes  the  Centaur  too  near.  Her 
broadside  of  oars  touch  some  of  the  jutting  crags,  the 
oars  are  broken,  and  the  boat’s  head  takes  the  rock, 
and  hangs  there  hard  and  fast.  All  efforts  of  the 


90 


THE  HEN  El D. 


crew  to  get  her  off  are  unavailing.  Mnestheus  makes 
the  dangerous  turn  safely  on  the  outside  of  his  rival, 
and  his  men,  encouraged  by  success,  redouble  their 
efforts.  The  Chimsera  has  no  good  steersman  to  re¬ 
place  old  Mencetes,  who  is  still  drying  himself  on  the 
rock,  and  she  is  easily  passed  on  the  return  course 
homewards.  The  struggle  becomes  now  one  of  intense 
interest  between  Mnestheus  and  Cloanthus,  who  is 
still  leading  in  the  Scylla. 

“  The  cheers  redouble  from  the  shore ; 

Heaven  echoes  noth  the  wild  uproar ; 

Those  blush  to  lose  a  conquering  game, 

And  fain  would  peril  life  for  fame ; 

These  bring  success  their  zeal  to  fan — 

They  can,  because  they  think  they  can.” 

The  Shark  has  a  stern  chase,  but  the  Scvlla  rows 
heavily,  as  we  have  been  told,  though  she  has  the 
best  crew,  and  the  distance  lessens  at  every  stroke. 
Had  the  course  been  longer,  the  Shark  would  have 
made  at  least  a  dead  heat  of  it.  But  as  it  is,  amidst  a 
storm  of  shouts,  the  Scylla  wins.  The  turning-point 
of  victory  is  one  which  does  not  approve  itself  to 
modern  readers.  The  sea-deities  interfere.  Standing 
high  upon  his  quarter-deck,  Cloanthus  lifts  his  prayer 
to  the  powers  of  ocean,  not  to  permit  his  prize  to  be 
snatched  from  him  at  the  last.  He  vows  an  offering 
of  a  milk-white  bull  and  libations  of  red  wine  if  they 
will  help  him  at  his  need. 

“  He  said  ;  there  heard  him  ’neath  the  sea 
The  Nereid  train  and  Panope; 


THE  FUNERAL  GAMES. 


91 


And  with  his  hand  divinely  strong, 

Portunus*  pushed  the  bark  along.” 

Possibly,  after  all,  the  poet  only  means  us  to  under* 
stand  that  this  was  Mnestheus’s  explanation  of  his 
defeat — that  the  luck  was  against  him.t 

Cloanthus  is  crowned  with  bays  as  the  victor  of  the 
day,  and  receives  as  his  prize  an  embroidered  robe  of 
rare  device — one  of  those  miracles  of  divers  colours  of 
needlework  in  which  the  classical  age  seems  to  have  as 
far  excelled  us  as  the  mediaeval  ladies  certainly  did. 
Each  crew  receives  three  oxen  and  a  supply  of  wine, 
while  a  talent  of  silver  is  divided  amongst  the  men  of 
the  victorious  Scylla.  Mnestheus,  as  second  in  the 
race,  wins  a  shirt  of  mail  whose  scales  are  of  gold, 
which  two  of  his  attendants  bear  off  with  difficulty. 
The  third  of  the  captains  has  a  pair  of  brazen  caldrons 
and  chased  silver  bowls.  But  while  the  awards  are 
being  distributed,  the  crippled  Centaur  has  got  off 
the  rock,  and  is  brought  into  harbour ;  and  a  Cretan 
slave-woman,  with  her  twin  children,  is  allotted,  by 
the  liberality  of  iEneas,  as  a  consolation  to  her  captain. 

*  One  of  the  Roman  sea-deities. 

*f*  Such  explanations  of  an  unfavourable  result  are  not  en¬ 
tirely  unknown  in  the  annals  of  modern  boat-races.  Reasons 
of  a  very  apocryphal  kind,  if  not  so  boldly  mythological,  have 
been  assigned  by  modern  captains  of  crews  for  their  having  been 
beaten.  When  an  unsuccessful  oarsman  recounts  his  deeds  to 
a  sympathetic  audience,  and  “tells  how  fields  were”  not  won, 
he  is  apt  to  complain  that,  in  some  form  or  other,  the  river- 
gods  were  unjust.  The  state  of  the  tide,  or  an  intruding  barge, 
or  an  imprudent  supper  on  the  part  of  “  No.  7,”  takes  the  place 
of  Panope  and  Portunus. 


92 


THE  JENE1D. 


From  the  shore  of  the  hay  the  company  now  move 
off  to  a  natural  amphitheatre  close  at  hand,  where  the 
rest  of  the  games  are  to  he  exhibited.  HUneas  takes 
his  place  high  in  the  midst  on  an  extemporised  throne. 
For  the  foot-race,  which  comes  first  on  the  list,  a 
crowd  of  competitors  enter,  both  of  native  Sicilians  and 
of  their  Trojan  guests.  Among  the  Sicilians  are  Sal- 
ius  and  Patron,  of  Greek  families  settled  in  the  island, 
and  Helymus  and  Panopes,  friends  and  companions  of 
Acestes.  The  favourites  among  the  Trojans  are  Diores, 
one  of  the  many  sons  of  Priam,  and  Nisus  and  Eury- 
alus,  noted  for  their  romantic  friendship,  of  which  we 
shall  hear  more  hereafter.  The  prizes  in  this  contest 
are  a  war-horse  with  full  trappings  for  the  first,  an 
Amazonian  quiver  for  the  second,  and  a  helmet — the 
spoil  of  some  conquered  Greek  on  the  plain  of  Troy — 
for  the  third.  Nisus  goes  off  with  a  strong  lead,  and 
has  the  race  easily  in  hand.  Next  him,  hut  at  a  long 
interval,  conies  Salius,  Euryalus  lying  third,  Helymus 
and  Diores,  close  together,  fourth  and  fifth.  But 
when  within  a  short  distance  of  the  goal,  Nisus  slips 
up  in  the  blood  and  filth  which  has  been  left  un¬ 
cleared  at  the  spot  where  the  oxen  have  been  sacrificed, 
and  falls  heavily  to  the  ground.  Knowing  himself 
to  be  out  of  the  race,  he  determines  that  his  dear 
Euryalus  shall  win.  So,  by  a  piece  of  most  unjusti¬ 
fiable  jockeyship,  which  ought  to  have  led  to  his  being 
warned  off  from  all  such  contests  for  ever  after,  he 
rises  up  at  the  moment  that  Salius  is  passing,  and 
brings  him  down  upon  him.  Euryalus  has  thus  an 
easy  victory,  Helymus  and  Diores  coming  in  second 


THE  FUNERAL  GAMES. 


93 


and  third.  Very  naturally,  there  is  much  dispute 
about  the  award.  Salius  complains  loudly  of  unfair 
play  ;  hut  young  Euryalus  is  handsome  and  popular, 
and  Diores  backs  his  claim  energetically ;  for  it  is  very 
evident  that  if  Salius  is  adjudged  the  first  prize, 
Euryalus  the  second,  and  Helymus  the  third,  then  he 
• — Diores — will  be  nowhere.  So  the  result  is  accepted 
by  the  judges  as  it  stands.  But  iEneas  quiets  the 
reasonable  objections  of  Salius  by  the  present  of  a 
lion’s  hide  with  gilded  claws.  Then  Nisus  makes 
appeal  for  compensation,  pointing  out  to  the  laughing 
spectators  the  blood  and  dirt  which  are  the  very 
disagreeable  evidences  of  his  mishap,  and  protesting, 
with  a  consummate  impudence  which  suits  with  the 
popular  humour,  that  the  whole  thing  was  an  accident, 
and  that  he,  as  the  winner  that  would  have  been,  is 
the  real  object  of  commiseration.  If  a  fall  deserves  a 
prize,  who  has  so  good  a  claim  as  the  man  who  fell 
first  ?  Again  the  generosity  of  ^Eneas  answers  the 
appeal,  and  Hisus  is  presented  with  a  shield  of  the 
finest  workmanship,  another  Greek  trophy.  Suc¬ 
cessful  knavery,  if  the  knave  be  somewhat  of  a 
humourist  withal,  always  wins  a  sort  of  sympathy 
from  the  public — in  the  Augustan  epic  as  well  as  in 
modern  comedy. 

The  prizes  of  the  foot-race  having  been  thus  decided, 
the  lists  are  cleared  for  the  boxing-match.  The  boxing- 
match  of  the  classical  ancients  was  very  different  in¬ 
deed  from  a  modern  set-to.  The  combatants  certainly 
wore  gloves;  but  these  were  meant  to  add  weight  and 
force  to  the  blow,  not  to  deaden  it.  The  stoutest 


94 


THE  yENEID. 


champion  of  tne  modern  prize-ring  might  shrink  from 
encountering  an  antagonist  whose  fists  were  bound 
round  with  strips  of  hardened  ox-hide.  But  such  was 
the  “  caestus  ”  which  was  worn  by  the  pugilists  of  this 
heroic  age.  The  prizes  are  displayed  by  EEneas;  for 
the  conqueror,  a  bull  with  gilded  horns;  a  helmet  and 
falchion  for  the  loser.  Up  rises  the  Trojan  Dares, 
whose  strength  and  skill  are  well  known.  The  only 
man  whom  he  acknowledged  as  his  superior  in  the  ring 
was  one  whom  we  might  have  least  expected — Paris, 
who  certainly  bears  no  such  reputation  in  Homer.  At 
the  great  games  held  in  honour  of  the  dead  Hector,  of 
which  we  have  the  very  briefest  note  in  the  Iliad, 
Dares  had  defeated  the  huge  champion  Butes,  sprung 
from  a  race  of  athletes,  and  so  mangled  him  that  he 
died  on  the  spot.  Ho  wonder  that  when  he  now  steps 
forth,  and  goes  through  some  preparatory  sparring 
with  the  air,  no  one  is  found  bold  enough  to  put  on 
the  gloves  with  him.  So,  after  a  glance  of  triumph 
round  the  admiring  circle,  he  advances  to  where  the 
bull  stands  in  front  of  iEneas,  lays  his  hand  upon  its 
horns,  and  claims  it  as  his  rightful  property  in  default 
of  an  antagonist. 

King  Acestes  is  concerned  for  the  honour  of  Sicily. 
There  is  lying  beside  him  on  the  grass  a  grey-haired 
chief  named  Entellus,  sometime  a  pupil  in  this  art  of 
the  great  hero  Eryx,  who  gave  his  name  to  the  moun¬ 
tain  which  overhangs  the  place  of  assembly.  Will  he 
sit  tamely  by,  Acestes  asks,  and  see  this  Trojan  boaster 
carry  off  the  prize  and  the  glory  unchallenged  ?  Entel¬ 
lus  listens  to  his  friend,  and  feels  the  old  fire  stir 


THE  FUNERAL  GAMES. 


95 


within  him.  He  would  willingly  enter  the  ring  once 
more  for  the  honour  of  his  native  island, — 

“  But  strength  is  slack  in  limbs  grown  old, 

And  aged  blood  runs  dull  and  cold. 

Had  I  the  thing  I  once  possessed, 

Which  makes  yon  braggart  rear  his  crest. 

Had  I  but  youth,  no  need  had  been 
Of  gifts,  to  lure  me  to  the  green.” 

He  rises  from  his  seat,  however,  and  throws  down  in 
the  arena,  by  way  of  challenge,  a  pair  of  ancient  gloves 
of  a  most  murderous  pattern.  Seven  folds  of  tough 
bull-hide  have  knobs  of  lead  and  iron  sewn  inside 
them.  They  are  the  gloves  in  which  the  hero  Eryx 
fought  his  fatal  battle  with  Hercules,  whom  he  had 
rashly  challenged,  and  they  still  bear  the  blood-stains 
of  Eryx’s  previous  victories.  Dares,  stout  champion 
as  he  is,  starts  back  in  dismay  when  he  sees  them,  and 
iEneas  himself  takes  them  up  and  handles  them  with 
wonder.  Entellus,  however,  will  not  insist  on  using 
these  ;  and  two  pair  of  less  formidable  manufacture 
and  of  equal  weight  are  produced,  with  which  the  two 
heroes  engage.  Virgil’s  description  of  this  ancient 
prize-fight  is  highly  spirited.  It  may  remind  some 
readers,  who  are  old  enough  to  remember  such  things, 
of  the  bulletins  of  similar  encounters  between  a  “  light¬ 
weight”  and  a  “heavy-weight,”  furnished  in  past  days 
by  sporting  writers  to  our  own  newspapers — with  the 
happy  omission  of  the  slang  of  the  ring  : — 

“  liaised  on  his  toes  each  champion  stands, 

And  fearless  lifts  in  air  his  hands. 


96 


THE  JEN  El  D. 


Their  heads  thrown  hack  avoid  the  stroke 
Their  mighty  arms  the  tight  provoke. 
That  on  elastic  youth  relies, 

This  on  vast  limbs  and  giant  size ; 

But  the  huge  knees  with  age  are  slack, 
And  fitful  gasps  the  deep  chest  rack. 

Full  many  a  blow  the  heroes  rain 
Each  on  the  other,  still  in  vain : 

Their  hollow  sides  return  the  sound, 
Their  battered  chests  the  shock  rebound : 
’Mid  ears  and  temples  come  and  go 
The  wandering  gauntlets  to  and  fro  : 

The  jarred  teeth  chatter  ’neath  the  blow. 
Firm  stands  Entellus  in  his  place, 

A  column  rooted  on  its  base ; 

His  watchful  eye  and  shrinking  frame 
Alone  avoid  the  gauntlet’s  aim. 

Like  leaguer  who  invests  a  town, 

Or  sits  before  a  liill-fort  down, 

The  younger  champion  tasks  his  art 
To  find  the  bulwark’s  weakest  part ; 

This  way  and  that  unwearied  scans, 

And  vainly  tries  a  thousand  plans. 
Entellus,  rising  to  the  blow, 

Puts  forth  his  hand  :  the  wary  foe 
Midway  in  air  the  mischief  spied, 

And,  deftly  shifting,  slipped  aside. 
Entellus’  force  on  air  is  spent : 

Heavily  down  with  prone  descent 
He  falls,  as  from  its  roots  uprent 
A  pine  falls  hollow,  on  the  side 
Of  Erymanth  or  lofty  Ide. 


Acestes  rushes  in,  like  an  attentive  second,  to  raise 
his  friend;  and  Entellus,  roused  to  fury  by  his  fall, 
renews  the  fight  savagely: — 


THE  FUNERAL  GAMES. 


97 


“  AHaze  witli  fury  he  pursues 
The  Trojan  o’er  the  green, 

And  now  his  right  hand  deals  the  bruise, 

And  now  his  left  as  keen. 

No  pause,  no  respite  :  fierce  and  fast 
As  hailstones  rattle  down  the  blast 
On  sloping  roofs,  with  blow  on  blow, 

He  buffets  Dares  to  and  fro.” 

The  unhappy  Dares  is  borne  off  by  his  friends  in 

miserable  plight, — with  half  his  teeth  knocked  out, 

blood  streaming  from  his  face,  and  hardly  able  to  stand. 

All  the  savage  has  been  roused  in  Entellus’s  nature  by 

the  fight.  He  is  not  half  satisfied  that  his  victim  has 

escaped  him.  He  would  gladly  have  sacrificed  him  to 

the  memory  of  his  great  master  Eryx, — here,  on  the 

spot  where  that  hero  fought  his  own  last  fight.  He 

lays  his  hand  upon  the  bull,  the  prize  of  battle,  and 

addresses  iEneas  and  the  spectators.  Dryden’s  version 

of  this  passage,  though  it  contains  as  much  of  Dryden 

as  of  Virgil,  has  justly  been  praised  as  very  noble  :• — 

% 

“  0  goddess-born,  and  ye  Dardanian  host, 

Mark  with  attention,  and  forgive  my  boast ; 

Learn  what  I  was  by  what  remains,  and  know 
From  what  impending  fate  you  saved  my  foe ! 

Sternly  he  spoke,  and  then  confronts  the  bull ; 

And  on  his  ample  forehead  aiming  full, 

The  deadly  stroke  descending  pierced  the  skull. 

Down  drops  the  beast,  nor  needs  a  second  wound, 

But  sprawls- in  pangs  of  death,  and  spurns  the  ground. 

4  Then  thus,  in  Dares’  stead,  I  offer  this  : 

Eryx,  accept  a  nobler  sacrifice  ; 

Take  the  last  gift  my  withered  arms  can  yield — 

Thy  gauntlets  I  resign,  and  here  renounce  the  field.*  " 

A.  C.  Vol.  V.  Q 


98 


THE  jENEID. 


Mr  Conington  lias  well  remarked  that  here  we  have, 
no  doubt,  *•  the  veteran  combatant’s  feelings  as  con¬ 
ceived  by  the  veteran  poet.”  He  wrote  the  lines  in 
his  sixty-second  year,  and  they  harmonise  pathetically 
with  the  words  in  his  dedication  :  “  What  I  now  offer 
to  your  lordship  is  the  wretched  remainder  of  a  sickly 
age.”  We  are  not  obliged  to  take  this  self-depreciation 
too  literally:  whatever  may  be  the  shortcomings  of 
Dryden’s  translation,  the  hand  of  the  old  poet  had  no 
more  lost  its  vigour  than  that  of  Entellus. 

The  archers  are  next  to  try  their  skill.  In  this 
contest  Acestes  himself  takes  part.  The  other  com¬ 
petitors  are  Mnestheus,  whose  crew  were  just  now 
second  in  the  race ;  Eurytion,  a  brother  of  Pandarus, 
the  great  archer  of  the  Iliad,  whose  treacherous  arrow, 
launched  against  Menelaus  during  the  truce,  had  well- 
nigh  turned  the  fate  of  Troy ;  and  Hippocoon,  of 
whom  we  know  nothing  more.  He  draws  the  first 
lot,  and  his  arrow  strikes  the  mast  on  which  the  mark, 
a  live  dove,  is  perched.  Mnestheus  shoots  next,  and 
cuts  the  cord  which  fetters  her ;  and  as  she  flies  away 
a  shaft  from  Eurytion’s  bow  follows  and  kills  her. 
There  is  nothing  left  for  Acestes  to  do,  but  to  shoot  an 
arrow  high  in  the  air  to  show  the  strength  of  his  hand 
and  his  bow.  To  the  astonishment  of  the  gazers,  the 
arrow  takes  fire,  and,  leaving  a  trail  of  light  on  its 
path  like  a  shooting-star,  vanishes  in  the  sky.  It  is 
an  omen,  as  zEneas  declares  ;  it  must  be  that  the  gods, 
in  spite  of  facts,  will  him  to  be  the  real  victor.  So 
the  prize  —  an  embossed  bowl,  a  present  from  the 
father  of  Hecuba  to  Ancliises  —  is  awarded  to  the 


THE  FUNERAL  GAMES. 


90 


Sicilian  prince,  even  Eurytion,  the  actnal  winner, 
acquiescing  heartily  in  the  arrangement.  Yet  the 
omen,  as  the  poet  tells  us,  really  boded  disaster ; 
though  whether  to  Sicily  or  to  the  Trojans,  or  how  it 
was  afterwards  fulfilled,  he  does  not  stop  to  explain. 
Commentators  have,  as  a  matter  of  duty,  done  so  for 
him ;  hut  it  is  hardly  worth  while  to  vex  ourselves 
with  their  conjectures  on  a  point  on  which  iEneas 
himself  was  mistaken. 

The  games  are  over — at  least,  so  far  as  the  public 
programme  seems  to  have  gone.  But  Hkneas  has  a 
surprise  in  store  for  his  hosts.  He  whispers  privately 
to  the  governor  or  tutor  of  his  son  lulus,  while  he 
requests  the  company  once  more  to  clear  the  amphi¬ 
theatre.  Soon  there  sweeps  into  the  ring  the  young 
chivalry  of  Troy  —  a  goodly  company  of  mounted 
youths,  all  of  noble  blood,  who  are  to  play  out  their 
play  before  their  assembled  seniors. 

“  They  enter,  glittering  side  by  side, 

And  rein  their  steeds  with  youthful  pride, 

As  ’neath  their  fathers’  eyes  they  ride, 

While  all  Trinacria’s  host  and  Troy’s 
With  plaudits  greet  the  princely  boys. 

Each  has  his  hair  by  rule  confined 
With  stripped-off  leaves  in  garland  twined : 

Some  ride  with  shapely  bows  equipped  : 

Two  cornel  spears  they  bear,  steel-tipped  : 

And  wreaths  of  twisted  gold  invest 
The  neck,  and  sparkle  on  the  breast. 

Three  are  the  companies  of  horse, 

And  three  the  chiefs  that  scour  the  course : 

Twelve  gallant  boys  each  chief  obey, 

And  shine  in  tripartite  array. 


TOO 


THE  JEN E IE. 


Young  Priam  first,  Polites’  heir, 

Well  pleased  his  grandsire’s  name  to  bear, 
Leads  his  gay  troop,  himself  decreed 
To  raise  up  an  Italian  seed  : 

He  prances  forth,  all  dazzling  bright, 

On  Thracian  steed  with  spots  of  white : 
White  on  its  fetlock’s  front  is  seen, 

And  white  the  space  its  brows  between. 
Then  Atys,  next  in  place,  from  whom 
The  Atian  family  descend  : 

Young  Atys,  fresh  with  life’s  first  bloom. 
The  boy  lulus’  sweet  boy-friend : 
lulus  last,  in  form  and  face 
Pre-eminent  his  peers  above, 

A  courser  rides  of  Tyrian  race, 

Memorial  gift  of  Dido’s  love. 

Sicilian  steeds  the  rest  bestride 
Prom  old  Acestes’  stalls  supplied. 

The  Dardanids  with  mingling  cheers 
Relieve  the  young  aspirants’  fears, 

And  gaze  delighted,  as  they  trace 
A  parent’s  mien  in  each  fair  face. 

11  And  now,  when  all  from  first  to  last 
Beneath  their  kinsfolk’s  eyes  had  past, 
Before  the  assembled  crowd, 

Epytides  shrills  forth  from  far 
His  signal-shout,  as  if  for  war, 

And  cracks  his  whip  aloud. 

In  equal  parts  the  bands  divide, 

And  gallop  off  on  either  side  : 

Then  wheeling  round  in  full  career 
Charge  at  a  call  with  levelled  spear 
Again,  again  they  come  and  go, 

Through  adverse  spaces  to  and  fro ; 
Circles  in  circles  interlock, 


THE  FUNERAL  GAMES. 


101 


And,  sheathed  in  arms,  the  gazers  mock 
With  mimicry  of  battle-shock. 

And  now  they  turn  their  backs  in  flight, 

Now  put  their  spears  in  rest, 

And  now  in  amity  unite, 

And  ride  the  field  abreast.” 

Such  was  the  Ludus  Trojae — “  The  Game  of  Troy  ” 
• — introduced,  according  to  the  poet,  by  lulus  in  after¬ 
days  into  his  new-built  town  of  Alba,  and  borrowed 
from  Alba  by  the  Romans.  Whatever  its  origin  may 
have  been,  it  was  revived  at  Rome  by  Augustus,  in 
his  zeal  for  restorations  of  all  kinds,  as  “  an  ancient 
and  honourable  institution.”  Princes  of  the  imperial 
house — young  Marcellus,  and  Tiberius  the  future  em¬ 
peror — rode,  like  lulus,  in  the  show ;  the  emperor 
himself  took  a  warm  interest  in  it ;  and  the  eagerness 
of  the  young  patricians  to  distinguish  themselves  in 
the  various  manoeuvres  before  his  eyes  and  those  of 
their  friends  led  to  serious  accidents.  To  one  young 
horseman  who  was  crippled  by  his  fall  Augustus  gave 
a  golden  torque,  and  granted  to  him  and  his  family 
permission  to  bear  the  name  of  “Torquatus” — re¬ 
nowned  in  the  early  annals  of  Rome.  But  other  acci¬ 
dents  happened,  and  led  to  such  loud  complaints  that 
the  sport  was  discontinued. 

But  while  the  eyes  of  Trojans  and  Sicilians  are 
engaged  with  this  spectacle,  a  terrible  proceeding  has 
taken  place  down  on  the  shore.  The  ships,  as  usual, 
are  drawn  up  there  hard  and  fast  upon  the  sand. 
The  Trojan  matrons  are  gathered  near  them,  making 
moan  for  the  good  Anchises  —  for  the  games  are  a 


102 


THE  JENE1B. 


spectacle  for  men.  They  are  looking  wistfully,  too, 
across  the  sea,  thinking  how  far  they  have  sailed 
already,  and  liow  far  they  may  yet  have  to  sail.  The 
watchful  hate  of  Juno  sees  her  opportunity.  She 
despatches  Iris  down  to  them  in  the  shape  of  one 
of  their  number — Beroe.  She  harangues  them  elo¬ 
quently.  How  long  will  they  be  content  to  live  this  J 
wandering  life,  in  search  of  a  distant  home — which 
possibly  has  no  existence  but  in  deceitful  prophecies  1  J 
The  disguised  Iris  seizes  a  brand  and  rushes  towards 


the  ships.  While  the  rest  hesitate,  one  of  their  numv 
her  detects  the  star-like  eyes  and  celestial  gait.  It  is 
not  old  Beroe — nay,  she,  to  the  witness’s  own  know¬ 
ledge,  lies  at  this  verv  moment  sick  in  bed.  It  is  no 
less  than  a  visitor  from  heaven.  They  hesitate  no 
longer  :  they  snatch  the  embers  from  the  altars,  and 
in  a  moment  the  deed  is  done,  and  the  galleys  are  in  ^ 
flames.  The  news  is  brought  to  Hhieas  just  as  the 
gay  parade  of  youths  is  ending ;  and  Ascanius  gallops 
at  once  down  to  the  shore,  dashes  his  helmet  on 
the  ground  that  all  may  know  him,  and  implores  the 
furious  women  to  stay  their  hands.  Do  they  fancy 
they  are  burning  the  war-ships  of  the  Greeks  1  His 
voice  recalls  them  to  themselves,  and  in  guilty  fear 
and  shame  they  fly  to  hide  themselves  among  the 
rocks  and  woods.  iEneas  rends  his  clothes,  and 
appeals  to  Jupiter.  The  ruler  of  the  sky  hears,  and 
sends  down  a  thunder-shower  which  drenches  every¬ 
thing  on  sea  and  shore,  so  that  all  but  four  galleys 
escape  with  little  damage. 

But  zEneas  is  troubled  at  heart.  May  not  this  mad 


THE  FUNERAL  GAMES. 


103 


Instinct  of  tlie  women  be  right,  after  all?  Were 
it  not  better  to  rest  here  in  Sicily,  than  wander  on 
again  over  the  weary  ocean  in  quest  of  this  .Western 
Land?  He  takes  counsel  with  the  Nestor  of  the  fleet 
— the  aged  Nautes — to  whom  the  goddess  of  wisdom 
has  given  an  understanding  spirit  beyond  his  fellows. 
The  old  seaman’s  motto  is  one  of  the  poet’s  noblest 
utterances  * — 

“  Wliate’er  betides,  he  only  cures 
The  stroke  of  fortune  who  endures.” 

He  bids  his  chief  take  counsel,  too,  with  Acestes.  In 
the  visions  of  the  night  the  shade  of  his  father  Ancliises 
once  more  appears  to  him,  and  gives  the  same  advice 
as  Nautes.  It  is  settled  that  the  women  and  the  old 
men,  and  all  that  are  weary  and  faint-hearted,  shall  be 
left  behind  in  Sicily,  while  the  picked  band  Of  good 
men  and  true  sail  on  with  their  leader  into  the  west , 
thus  their  reduced  number  of  ships  will  yet  suffice 
them.t  The  damaged  galleys  are  hastily  repaired,  and 
the  foundations  of  a  new  town  are  marked  out  for  the 
Trojan  settlers :  it  is  to  be  called  Acesta,  in  honour  of 

*  “  Superanda  omnis  fortuna  ferendo  est.” 

+  Virgil  himself  has  no  word  of  reproach  for  these  weaker 
spirits,  who  thus  preferred  the  rest  of  Sicily  to  the  far-off  hopes 
of  Hesperia.  But  his  impassioned  pupil  Dante  is  less  merciful : 
he  classes  them  in  his  “  Purgatory  ”  with  the  murmuring  Israel¬ 
ites  : — 

“  First  they  died,  to  whom  the  sea 
Opened,  or  ever  Jordan  saw  his  heirs  ; 

And  they  who  with  yEneas  to  the  end 
•  Endured  not  suffering,  for  their  portion  chose 
Life  without  glory.” 


— Purg.  xviii.  (Cary.) 


104 


THE  jENEID. 


their  kind  host.  The  parting  of  the  wanderers  from 
their  friends  is  a  fine  passage,  finely  rendered  : — 

“  With  kindliness  of  gentle  speech 
The  good  iEneas  comforts  each, 

And  to  their  kinsman  prince  commends 
With  tears  his  subjects  and  his  friends. 

Three  calves  to  Eryx  next  he  kills  ; 

A  lambkin’s  blood  to  Tempest  spills, 

And  bids  them  loose  from  land : 

With  olive-leaves  he  binds  his  brow, 

Then  takes  his  station  on  the  prow, 

A  charger  in  his  hand, 

Flings  out  the  entrails  on  the  brine, 

And  pours  a  sacred  stream  of  wine. 

Fair  winds  escort  them  o’er  the  deep  : 

With  emulous  stroke  the  waves  they  sweep.” 


CHAPTER  VL 


THE  SIBYL  AND  THE  SHADES. 

The  Sea-god,  at  Venus’s  intercession  for  her  son,  sends 
iEneas  and  his  crews  calm  seas  and  prosperous  gales. 
One  victim  only  the  Eates  demand;  Palinurus,  the 
pilot  of  ^Eneas’s  ship,  gives  way  to  sleep  during  the 
quiet  watches  of  the  night,  slips  overboard,  and  is 
lost.  The  poet  has  clothed  the  whole  story  in  a  trans¬ 
parent  mythological  allegory,  and  which  must  have 
been  intended  to  be  transparent.  Sleep  is  personified; 
Palinurus  resists  his  first  temptations  ;  but  the  god 
waves  over  his  eyes  a  bough  steeped  in  dews  of  Lethe, 
the  river  of  forgetfulness,  and  the  unhappy  steersman 
can  hold  out  no  longer.  The  accident  happens  near 
the  shore  of  the  twin  Sirens,  of  whose  seductions 
Homer  has  told  us  in  the  wanderings  of  Ulysses  : — 

“  A  perilous  neighbourhood  of  yore 
And  white  with  mounded  bones, 

Where  the  hoarse  sea  with  far-heard  roar 
Keeps  washing  o’er  the  stones.” 

ffineas  discovers  his  loss  by  the  unsteady  course  of 


106 


THE  jENEID. 


the  galley,  and  takes  the  helm  himself,  until  he  brings 
the  little  fleet  safe  into  the  liarhour  of  Cumae.  The 
crews  disembark,  with  the  joy  which  these  seamen  of 
old  always  felt  when  they  touched  land  again,  and 
proceed  at  -once  to  search  for  water,  cut  wood,  and 
light  fires  : — 


“  Sage  Daedalus — so  runs  the  tale — 

From  Minos  bent  to  fly, 

On  feathery  pinions  dared  to  sail 
Along  the  untravelled  sky  ; 

Flies  northward  through  the  polar  heights, 
Nor  stays  till  he  on  Cumae  lights. 

First  landed  here,  he  consecrates 
The  wings  whereon  he  flew 
To  Phoebus’  power,  and  dedicates 
A  fane  of  stately  view.” 


Here  HCneas  consults  the  mysterious  Sibyl,  whose 
oracular  verses  are  referred  to  in  Virgil’s  Pastoral 
already  noticed.  She  figures  under  various  names  in 
classical  story — that  which  she  bears  here  is  DeiphobA 
Her  dwelling  is  in  a  cave  in  the  rock  behind  the 
temple,  with  which  it  communicates  by  a  hundred 
doors.  Within  sits  the  prophetess  on  a  tripod,  where 
she  receives  the  inspiration  of  the  god.  When  the 
oracle  is  pronounced,  the  doors  all  fly  open,  and  the 
sound  comes  forth.  But  there  is  one  way  in  which 
she  is  wont  to  give  her  answers,  against  which 
Helenus  has  already  warned  her  present  visitors.  She 
has  a  habit  of  jotting  down  her  responses  in  verse 
upon  the  leaves  of  trees — each  verse  apparently  on  a 
separate  leaf — and  then  piling  them  one  upon  another 


THE  SIBYL  AND  THE  SHADES. 


107 


in  her  cave.  When  the  doors  fly  open,  the  gust  of 
wind  whirls  the  leaves  here  and  there  in  all  directions; 
and  the  ambiguities  which  are  proper  to  all  oracles  are 
considerably  increased  in  the  process  of  rearranging 
the  several  leaves  into  anything  like  coherent  order — 
the  Sibyl  herself  disdaining  all  further  interference. 
So  that  many  of  her  clients  go  away  without  having 
received  any  intelligible  answer  at  all,  and  from  that 
time  forth  “hate  the  very  name  of  the  Sibyl.”  A 
modern  writer,*1  whose  poetical  taste  has  made  him 
one  of  the  most  interesting  critics  of  Virgil,  has 
thought  that  the  confusion  of  the  prophetic  leaves 
was  meant  to  symbolise  the  idea  that  the  will  of  the 
gods  was  made  known  to  mortals  only  in  disjointed 
utterances,  and  under  no  regular  law  of  order.  iEneas, 
therefore,  in  his  appeal  to  the  prophetess,  begs  her 
specially  to  give  her  answer  by  word  of  mouth. 

Deiphobk  proceeds  to  the  seat  of  augury,  and  goes 
through  the  terrible  struggle  which,  according  to  all 
legends,  invariably  accompanied  this  form  of  prophecy. 
Even  when  she  comes  in  view  of  the  awful  doors,  the 
influence  begins : — 


“  Her  visage  pales  its  hue, 

Her  locks  dishevelled  fly, 

Her  breath  comes  thick,  her  wild  heart  glows  ; 
Dilating  as  the  madness  grows, 

Her  form  looks  larger  to  the  eye, 

Unearthly  peals  her  deep-toned  cry, 

As  breathing  nearer  and  more  near 
The  God  comes  rushing  on  his  seex.’* 


*  Keble. 


108 


TEE  jENEID. 


The  paroxysms  increase  after  she  has  entered  the  cave, 
and  is  in  the  agonies  of  inspiration  : — 

“  The  seer,  impatient  of  control, 

Eaves  in  the  cavern  vast, 

And  madly  struggles  from  her  soul 
The  incumbent  power  to  cast. 

He,  mighty  Master,  plies  the  more 
Her  foaming  mouth,  all  chafed  and  sore, 

Tames  her  wild  heart  with  plastic  hand, 

And  makes  her  docile  to  command.” 

At  last  all  the  hundred  doors  fly  open  at  once,  and 
the  voice  of  destiny  comes  forth.  The  wanderers 
shall  reach  Latium  safely,  but  they  shall  wish  they 
had  never  reached  it. 

“  War,  dreadful  war,  and  Tiber  flood 
j  I  see  incarnadined  with  blood  ; 

Simois  and  Xanthus,  and  the  plain 
Where  Greece  encamped  shall  rise  again : 

A  new  Achilles,  goddess-born, 

The  destinies  provide, 

And  Juno,  like  a  rankling  thorn, 
v  Shall  never  quit  your  side. 

•  •  •  • 

The  old,  old  cause  shall  stir  the  strife — 

A  stranger  bed,  a  foreign  wife. 

Yet  still  despond  not,  but  proceed 
Along  the  path  where  Fate  may  lead.” 

iEneas  hears, — undismayed.  He  is  a  true  hero  so  far, 
that  he  is  always  equal  to  his  fate.  One  request  he 
makes  of  the  Sibyl, — that  he  may  visit  the  shades  be¬ 
low,  the  entrance  to  which  is  said  to  lie  here,  within 
the  prophetess’s  domain,  and  there  see  again  the  faco  of 


THE  SIBYL  AND  THE  SHADES. 


109 


his  father.  Deiphobfc  consents,  but  not  without  the 
solemn  warning,  often  quoted  to  point  a  far  higher 
moral  than  the  heathen  poet  was  likely  to  have  con¬ 
ceived — so  often,  that  the  Latin  words  themselves  are 
probably  familiar  even  to  those  who  profess  but  little 
Latin  scholarship : — 

u  Facilis  descensus  Avemi  ; 

Noctes  atque  dies  patet  atra  janua  Ditis  ; 

Sed  revocare  gradum,  superasque  evadere  ad  auras. 
Hoc  opus,  hie  labor  est.” 

Their  terseness  and  pathos  are  not  easy  to  repro¬ 
duce  in  any  other  language,  but  Mr  Conington  has 
done  it  as  well,  perhaps,  as  it  could  be  done  : — 

“  The  journey  down  to  the  Abyss 
Is  prosperous  and  light  ; 

The  palace-gates  of  gloomy  Dis 
Stand  open  day  and  night ; 

But  upward  to  retrace  the  way, 

And  pass  into  the  light  of  day, — 

There  comes  the  stress  of  labour — this 
May  task  a  hero’s  might.” 

Few  are  they  of  mortal  birth  who,  by  the  special  grace 
of  the  gods,  have  achieved  that  desperate  venture  with 
success.  Still,  if  iEneas  is  determined  to  attempt  it, 
she  will  teach  him  the  secret  of  the  passage.  Deep 
in  the  shades  of  the^neiglibouring  forest  there  grows 
a  tree  which  bears  a  golden  bough,  which  he  must  find 
and  carry  with  him  into  the  regions  of  the  dead ;  it  is 
the  gift  which  Proserpine,  who  reigns  there,  claims 
from  all  who  enter  her  court . 

Accompanied  by  his  faithful  Achates,  iEneas  enters 


110 


THE  jENEID . 


the  woods  in  quest  of  the  golden  hough.  The  search 
seems  in  vain,  until  two  white  doves,  the  birds  of  his 
goddess-mother  Venus,  make  their  appearance,  and, 
leading  the  way  by  short  successive  flights,  draw  the 
seekers  on  to  the  wondrous  tree,  on  which  they  at 
last  alight.  The  hero  makes  prize  of  the  golden 
branch,  with  which  he  returns  to  the  Sibyl.  Under 
her  directions  he  offers  the  due  sacrifices  to  the  infer¬ 
nal  powers — four  black  bulls,  a  barren  heifer,  and.  a 
black  ewe-lamb — and  then,  still  under  the  leading  of 
the  prophetess,  with  drawn  sword  in  his  hand,  he 
enters  the  mouth  of  Hades. 

“  Along  the  illimitable  shade 
Darkling  and  lone  their  way  they  made, 

Through  the  vast  kingdom  of  the  dead, 

An  empty  void,  though  tenanted. 

So  travellers  in  a  forest  move 
With  but  the  uncertain  moon  above, 

Beneath  her  niggard  light, 

When  Jupiter  has  hid  from  view 
The  heaven,  and  Nature’s  every  hue 
Is  lost  in  blinding  night. 

“  At  Orcus’  portals  hold  their  lair 
Wild  Sorrow  and  avenging  Care  ; 

And  pale  Diseases  cluster  there, 

And  pleasureless  Decay, 

Foul  Penury,  and  Fears  that  kill, 

And  Hunger,  counsellor  of  ill, 

A  ghastly  presence  they  : 

Suffering  and  Death  the  threshold  keep, 

And  with  them  Death’s  blood-brother  Sleep: 

Ill  Joys  with  their  seducing  spells 
And  deadly  War  are  at  the  doer ; 


THE  SIBYL  AND  THE  SHADES. 


ill 


The  Furies  couch  in  iron  cells, 

And  Discord  maddens  and  rebels; 

Her  snake-locks  hiss,  her  wreaths  drip  gore. 

“  Full  in  the  midst  an  aged  elm 
Broods  darkly  o’er  the  shadowy  realm  : 

There  dream-land  phantoms  rest  the  wing, 

Men  say,  and  ’neath  its  foliage  cling. 

And  many  monstrous  shapes  beside 
Within  the  infernal  gates  abide; 

There  Centaurs,  Scyllas,  fish  and  maid, 

There  Briareus’  hundred-handed  shade, 

Chimsera  armed  with  flame, 

Gorgons  and  Harpies  make  their  den, 

With  the  foul  pest  of  Lerna’s  fen, 

And  Geryon’s  triple  frame.” 

Then  they  come  in  sight  of  the  rivers  of  Hell — Ache¬ 
ron,  Cocytus,  and  Styx.  The  relative  physical  geo¬ 
graphy  is  somewhat  confused  by  the  poet,  but  it  is  the 
Styx  on  which  the  Ferryman  of  the  Shades,  the  surly 
Charon, — 

“  Grim,  squalid,  foul,  with  aspect  dire, 

His  eyeballs  each  a  globe  of  fire,” — 

plies  his  office  of  transporting  the  dead,  performing  the 
duties  which  Homer  assigns  to  Mercury.  But  it  is  not 
all  who  even  in  death  are  allowed  to  pass  the  gloomy 
river.  Only  those  who  have  received  all  due  rites  of 
burial  can  claim  to  enter  the  final  abode  of  spirits  at 
once  ;  those  unhappy  ones  who  from  any  cause  lie 
unburied  have  to  wander,  moaning  and  shivering,  on 
the  other  side,  for  a  space  of  a  hundred  years.  So  the 
Sibyl  explains  to  iEneas,  when  he  marks  with  surprise 


112 


THE  JEN  El  B. 


how  the  shades  all  crowd  eagerly  to  the  boat-side 
praying  for  admission,  and  how  the  grisly  ferryman 
drives  some  back  with  his  oar.  It  is  a  sad  thought  to 
the  hero  ;  for  amongst  the  rejected  he  sees  some  of  his 
own  companions  who  had  perished  in  the  storm  off 
the  coast  of  Carthage.  Among  them,  too,  he  sees  the 
figure  of  his  late  pilot  Palinurus,  who  tells  him  the 
story  of  his  unhappy  fate ;  how,  after  all,  he  was  not 
drowned,  but,  clinging  to  the  piece  of  rudder  which 
had  broken  away  with  him,  had  drifted  three  days 
and  nights  upon  the  waves,  and  had  at  last  swam 
ashore  on  the  fated  coast  of  Italy.  There  the  cruel 
natives  had  attacked  and  killed  him,  as  he  struggled 
up  the  cliffs ;  and  now  his  corpse  lies  tossed  to  and 
fro  amid  the  breakers  in  the  harbour  of  Yelia.  He 
prays  of  his  leader  either  to  sail  back  there  and  to 

“  Give  him  a  little  earth  for  charity ;  ” 

or,  by  his  influence  with  these  Powers  below,  to  get 
the  law  of  exclusion  relaxed  in  his  favour.  This  last 
request  the  Sibyl  rebukes  at  once,  as  utterly  inorthodox 
and  heretical ;  but  comforts  him  at  the  same  time 
with  the  assurance  that  the  barbarous  natives  shall  be 
plagued  by  heaven  for  their  abominable  deed,  nor 
shall  they  find  deliverance  until  they  solemnly  propi¬ 
tiate  his  shade  by  the  erection  of  a  mound  and  the 
establishment  of  funeral  honours,  and  call  the  spot  by 
the  name  of  Palinurus — which  name,  the  Sibyl  declares, 
shall  endure  there  for  ever.  The  oracular  voice  in 
this  case  was  not  deceitful  :  the  place,  or  supposed 
place,  is  still  called  “  Punta  di  Palinuro.”  Virgil’s 


THE  SIBYL  AND  THE  SHADES 


113 


imperial  audience  might  know  it  well,  for  Augustus 
was  very  nearly  himself  becoming  a  sacrifice  on  that 
very  spot  to  the  manes  of  the  ancient  pilot,  many  of 
his  ships  having  been  cast  away  on  that  very  head¬ 
land. 

Charon  is  by  no  means  gracious  to  the  intruders. 
At  first  .he  warns  them  off.  He  has  no  pleasant 
recollections  of  former  visitors  from  upper  air,  who, 
without  the  proper  qualification  of  being  previously 
dead  and  duly  burnt  or  buried,  had  made  their  way 
against  all  rule  into  this  abode  of  shadows.  Hercules 
had  come  there,  and  carried  off  their  watchful  guardian 
Cerberus  :  Theseus  and  his  friend  Pirithous  had  even 
tried  to  do  the  same  by  Proserpine. 

u  My  laws  forbid  me  to  convey 
Substantial  forms  of  breathing  clay. 

’Twas  no  good  hour  that  made  me  take 
Alcides  o’er  the  nether  lake, 

Nor  found  I  more  auspicious  freight 
In  Theseus  and  his  daring  mate; 

Yet  all  were  Heaven’s  undoubted  heirs, 

And  prowess  more  than  man’s  was  theirs. 

That  from  our  monarch’s  footstool  dragged 
The  infernal  watch-dog,  bound  and  gagged; 

These  strove  to  force  from  Pluto’s  side 
Our  mistress,  his  imperial  bride.” 

The  Sibyl  bids  Charon  have  no  fears  of  this  kind  now — 
Cerberus  and  Proserpine  are  safe  from  all  designs  on 
the  part  of  her  companion.  This  is  iEneas  of  Troy, 
known  for  his  “  piety  ”  as  widely  as  for  his  deeds  of 
arms.  He  does  but  seek  an  interview  with  his  sire 
Anchises.  But,  if  Charon  be  deaf  to  all  such  argu- 
a.  o.  voL  v.  -  h 


114 


TIIE  jENEID. 


ments, — she  shows  the  golden  hough.  The  passport  is 
irresistible.  Sullenly,  and  without  a  word  of  reply, 
the  dark  boatman  brings  his  craft  to  shore,  and  bids 
the  freight  of  ghosts  clear  the  decks  and  make  room 
for  his  living  passengers.  The  boat  groans,  its  seams 
open  and  let  in  the  water,  as  the  substantial  flesh  and 
blood  steps  on  board.*  So,  in  the  Iliad  of  Homer, 

*  The  rickety  state  of  Charon’s  boat  was  always  a  fertile 
source  of  wit  to  the  freethinkers  among  the  classical  satirists. 
Lucian,  in  one-  of  his  very  amusing  dialogues,  makes  Charon 
complain  of  his  passengers  bringing  luggage  with  them  :  “  My 
boat  is  something  rotten,  look  you,  and  lets  in  a  good  deal  of 
water  at  the  seams  ;  if  you  come  on  board  with  all  that  luggage 
you  may  repent  it— especially  those  of  you  who  can’t  swim.” — 
(Dial.  Mort.,  x.)  So  in  another  dialogue  Menippus  thinks  it 
hard  to  be  asked  to  pay  for  his  passage  over,  when  “  he  helped 
to  bale  the  boat  all  the  way.”  It  may  be  observed  that  the 
boat  is  said  to  be  made  of  hide,  stretched  on  a  wooden  frame, 
like  the  “  coracles”  of  the  Britons,  still  in  use  on  some  of  the 
Welsh  rivers.  There  may  be  some  connection  with  an  ancient 
tradition  which  would  identify  the  “white  rock*  ot  which 
Homer  speaks  (Od.,  xxiv.  11)  as  marking  the  entrance  to  the 
regions  of  the  dead  with  the  cliffs  of  our  own  island — “  Albion.” 
A  curious  old  legend  of  the  coast  of  France  gives  some  colour  to 
the  interpretation. .  There  was  a  tribe  of  fishermen  who  were 
exempted  from  payment  of  tribute,  on  the  ground  that  they 
ferried  over  into  Britain  the  souls  of  the  departed.  At  night¬ 
fall,  when  they  were  asleep  (so  the  legend  ran),  they  would  be 
awakened  by  a  loud  knocking  at  their  doors,  and  voices  calling 
them,  and  feel  a  strange  compulsion  to  go  down  to  the  sea¬ 
shore.  There  they  found  boats,  not  their  own,  ready  launched, 
and  to  all  appearance  empty.  When  they  stepped  on  board  and 
began  to  ply  their  oars  they  found  the  boats  move  as  though 
they  were  heavily  laden,  sinking  within  a  finger’s  breadth  of 
the  water’s  edge  ;  but  they  saw  no  man.  Within  an  hour,  as 


THE  SIBYL  AND  THE  SHADES. 


115 


ihe  mortal  horses  and  earthly  chariot  of  Diomed  groan 
and  strain  under  their  immortal  burden,  when  Minerva 
takes  her  seat  beside  the  champion. 

Cerberus,  in  spite  of  Hercules,  is  at  home  again, 
and  on  the  watch.  His  three  heads  and  snake- 
wreathed  neck  are  lifted  in  fury  at  the  sight  of 
strangers,  and  his  bark  rings  through  the  shades. 
But  the  Sibyl  has  brought  with  her  a  medicated  cake, 
which  she  throws  down  to  him ;  he  eats,  and  falls  at 
once  into  a  heavy  sleep. 

Then,  led  by  the  Sibyl,  the  Trojan  chief  passes 
through  the  various  regions  of  the  world  below. 
Hirst  they  hear  the  cries  of  those  infants  who  but  just 
knew  life  in  the  world  above,  and  then  were  snatched 
away  from  its  enjoyment.*  Next  them  come  those 
who  have  been  condemned  to  death  by  an  unjust 
judgment,  and  for  whom  Minos  here  sits  as  judge  of 
appeals.  In  the  next  region  are  those  unhappy  ones — 

it  seemed,  they  reached  the  opposite  coast — a  voyage  which  in 
their  own  boats  they  hardly  made  in  a  whole  day  and  night. 
When  they  touched  the  shore  of  Britain  still  they  saw  no 
shape,  hut  they  heard  voices  welcoming  their  ghostly  passen¬ 
gers,  and  calling  each  of  the  dead  by  name  and  rank.  Then 
having  got  rid,  as  it  seemed,  of  their  invisible  freight,  they  put 
off  again  for  home,  feeling  their  boats  so  sensibly  lightened 
that  hardly  more  than  the  keel  touched  the  water. — See  Gesner’s 
Notes  on  Claudian,  iii.  123  ;  Procopius,  De  Bell.  Gotli.,  iv.  20. 

*  We  have  here  the  foundation  of  the  fanciful  doctrine  of  a 
Limbo  Infantum,  held  by  some  doctors  of  the  Romish  Church — 
a  kind  of  vestibule  to  the  greater  Purgatory,  in  which  were 
placed  the  souls  of  such  children  as  died  before  they  were  old 
enough  to  be  admitted  to  the  sacraments. 


116 


THE  jENEID. 


“  Who  all  for  loathing  of  the  clay 
In  madness  threw  their  lives  away : 

How  gladly  now  in  upper  air 
Contempt  and  beggary  would  they  bear, 

And  labour’s  sorest  pain ! 

Fate  bars  the  way :  around  their  keep 
The  slow  unlovely  waters  creep, 

And  bind  with  three-fold  chain.” 

Suicide  was  no  crime  in  the  early  pagan  creed  ;  but 
Virgil  has  to  a  certain  degree  adopted  the  Platonic 
notion,  that  to  take  away  one’s  own  life  was  to  desert 
the  post  of  duty.  It  is  remarkable  how  thorougldy  he 
adopts  Homer’s  view  of  the  incomparable  superiority 
of  the  life  of  the  upper  world  to  the  best  possible 
estate  in  the  land  of  shadows.  We  have  here  again  the 
sad  lament  of  Achilles  in  the  Iliad — that  the  life  of  a 
slave  on  earth  was  more  to  be  desired  than  the  colour¬ 
less  existence  of  the  heroes  in  Elysium. 

Passing  from  these  outer  circles,  the  travellers  reach 
the  “  Mourning  Fields,”  in  which  the  poet  places  all 
the  victims  of  love.  If  there  was  any  doubt  as  to  his 
view  of  the  passion — that  it  was  a  lower  appetite,  ex¬ 
cusable  enough  in  man,  but  in  a  woman  either  to  be 
reprobated  or  pitied  according  to  circumstances — it 
would  be  set  at  rest  by  the  characters  of  those  victims 
-with  whom  he  peoples  this  unlovely  region.  Grouped 
together  with  such  devoted  wives  as  Evadne,  who, 
when  her  husband  fell  iu  the  Trojan  war,  slew  herself 
for  grief  upon  his  funeral  pile,  and  Laodamia,  whose 
only  crime  was  that  by  her  too  urgent  prayers  she  won 
back  her  dead  Protesilaus  to  her  embrace  for  a  few 


THE  SIBYL  AND  THE  SHADES. 


117 


fleeting  moments,  and  died  of  joy  in  his  arms,*  we  find 
the  treacherous  Eriphyle,  who,  for  the  bribe  of  a  golden 
necklace,  persuaded  her  husband  Amphiarus  to  go  to 
his  predestined  death  in  the  same  war,  and  even  such 
disgraces  to  their  sex  as  were  Phaedra  and  Pasiphae. 
In  these  Mourning  Fields  AEneas  meets  one  whom 
he  would,  it  may  be  conceived,  have  very  gladly 
avoided.  Half  veiled  in  mist,  seen  dimly  like  the 
moon  through  a  cloud,  Dido  stands  before  him  there  : 
and  thus,  for  the  first  time,  he  is  made  certain  or 
her  death.  AEneas  is  ready  with  regrets,  and  even 
tears. 

i 

“  She  on  the  ground  averted  kept 
Hard  eyes  that  neither  smiled  nor  wept ; 

Nor  bated  more  of  her  stern  mood, 

Than  if  a  monument  she  stood.” 

At  last,  without  a  word,  she  turns  from  her  false  lover, 
and  seeks  in  the  dim  groves  the  society  of  her  dead 
husband  Sichseus. 

*  “  Aloud  she  shrieked !  for  Hermes  reappears ; 

Round  the  dear  shade  she  would  have  clung— ’tis  vain. 

The  hours  are  past— too  brief,  had  they  been  years  ; 

And  him  no  mortal  effort  can  detain : 

Swift,  toward  the  realms  that  know  not  earthly  day, 

He  through  the  portal  takes  his  silent  way, 

And  on  the  palace-floor  a  lifeless  corse  she  lay. 

u  By  no  weak  pity  might  the  gods  be  moved  ; 

She  who  thus  perished,  not  without  the  crime 
Of  lovers  that  in  Reason’s  spite  have  loved, 

Was  doomed  to  wear  out  her  appointed  time. 

Apart  from  happy  ghosts  that  gather  flowers 
Of  blissful  quiet  ’mid  unfading  bowers.” 

—Wordsworth’s  *  Laodamisu 


118 


THE  JE NEID. 


»  The  Sibyl  leads  her  companion  on  to  the  Field  of 
the  Heroes.  There  he  sees  the  mighty  men  of  old : 
the  chiefs  who  fought  against  Thebes  in  the  great  siege 
which  preceded  that  of  Troy — Tydeus,  and  Adrastus, 
and  Parthenopoeus.  There,  too,  are  the  shades  of  his 
own  companions  in  arms,  who  fell  in  defence  of  their 
city.  Among  these  last  is  one  who  has  another  tale 
to  tell  of  the  abominable  Helen.  It  is  Deiphobus, 
one  of  the  many  sons  of  Priam,  to  whom  Helen  had 
been  given  after  the  death  of  Paris.  HEneas  is  shocked 
to  see  the  unsubstantial  shape  of  the  prince  bearing 
the  marks  of  barbarous  mutilation ;  his  hands  lopped, 
his  face  gashed,  and  his  ears  and  nostrils  cut  off. 
(For,  even  in  this  shadowy  existence,  the  ghosts 
all  bear  the  marks  of  violent  death  —  Dido’s  self- 
inflicted  wound  being  specially  mentioned.)  HEneas 
asks  the  history  of  this  terrible  disfigurement,  and 
Deiphobus  tells  it  at  some  length :  how  the  double 
traitoress,  who  was  then  his  wife,  had  led  Menelaus 
and  his  companion,  the  accursed  Ulysses,  to  the  cham¬ 
ber  where  he  lay  sunk  in  sleep  on  the  disastrous  night 
of  the  city’s  capture,  and  how  they  two  had  thus 
mangled  his  body. 

But  the  Sibyl  warns  her  companion,  who  stands 
absorbed  in  grief  at  his  comrade’s  fate,  that  the  per¬ 
mitted  hours  of  their  visit  are  fast  passing  away.  She 
guides  him  on  to  where  the  path  they  are  treading 
divides,  leading  in  one  direction  to  the  Elvsian 
Fields,  in  the  other  to  Tartarus, — for  the  district  which 
they  have  explored  already  is  represented  as  of  an 
entirely  neutral  character.  On  the  left,  AEneas  sees 


THE  SIBYL  AND  THE  SHADES. 


119 


rise  before  him  the  broad  bastions  of  Tartarus,  round 
which  flows  the  fiery  stream  of  Phlegethon  ? — 

**  In  front  a  portal  stands  displayed, 

On  adamantine  columns  stayed ; 

Nor  mortal  nor  immortal  foe 
Those  massy  gates  could  overthrow. 

An  iron  tower  of  equal  might 
In  air  uprises  steep  ; 

Tisiphonk,  in  red  robes  diglit, 

Sits  on  the  threshold  day  and  night, 

With  eyes  that  know  not  sleep. 

Hark !  from  within  there  issue  groans, 

The  cracking  of  the  thong, 

The  clank  of  iron  o’er  the  stones 
Dragged  heavily  along.” 

.Eneas  asks  of  his  companion  the  meaning  of  these 
fearful  sounds.  They  are  the  outcries  of  the  wicked 
in  torment.  They  may  not  be  seen  by  human  eyes  ; 
but  Deipliobe  herself  has  been  shown  all  the  horrible 
secrets  of  their  prison-house  by  Hecate,  when  intrusted 
by  that  goddess  with  the  charge  of  the  entrance  to  the 
Shades.  She  tells  Eneas  how  Ehadamanthus  sits  in 
judgment  there,  and  forces  the  wicked  to  confess,  their 
deeds.  Crimes  successfully  concealed  on  earth  are 
there  made  manifest ;  then  the  culprit  is  handed  over 
to  the  Furies  for  punishment.  Such  punishments  are 
various  as  the  crimes  ;  strange  and  horrible  in  the 
cases  of  extraordinary  offenders, — especially  against  the 
majesty  of  the  gods.  In  the  lowest  gulf  of  all, — 

“  Where  Tartarus,  with  sheer  descent, 

Dips  ’neath  the  ghost-world  twice  as  deep 


120 


TEE  JENEIE. 


As  towers  above  earth’s  continent 

The  height  of  heaven’s  Olympian  steep,” — 

lie  the  twin  giants,  sons  of  Aloeus,  who  sought  to 
storm  heaven,  and  hurl  Jupiter  from  his  throne. 
There,  too,  is  chained  Salmoneus,  who,  counterfeiting 
the  thunder  and  lightning  of  the  Olympian  ruler,  was 
struck  down  by  the  force  which  he  profanely  imitated. 
Tityos,  son  of  Earth,  who  dared  to  offer  violence  to 
the  goddess  Latona,  lies  there  also,  suffering  the  pun¬ 
ishment  assigned  by  the  Greek  mythologists  to  Pro¬ 
metheus  : — 

“  O’er  acres  nine  from  end  to  end 
His  vast  unmeasured  limbs  extend ; 

A  vulture  on  his  liver  preys  : 

The  liver  fails  not,  nor  decays  : 

Still  o’er  that  flesh  which  breeds  new  pangs, 
With  crooked  beak  the  torturer  hangs, 

Explores  its  depth  with  bloody  fangs, 

And  searches  for  her  food ; 

Still  haunts  the  cavern  of  his  breast, 

Nor  lets  the  filaments  have  rest, 

To  endless  pain  renewed.” 

Virgil  is  here  more  literally  orthodox,  and  less 
philosophical  in  his  creed,  than  his  master  Lucretius. 
Eor  he,  too,  knew  the  story  of  Tityos,  but  saw  in  it  only 
an  allegory  ;  “every  man  is  a  Tityos,”  says  the  elder 
poet,  “  whose  heart  is  torn  and  racked  perpetually  by 
his  own  evil  lusts  and  passions.”  Other  and  various 
torments  has  the  Sibyl  seen ;  for  the  selfish  and 
covetous,  for  the  adulterer,  for  the  betrayer  of  trust, 
and  the  spoiler  of  the  orphan  ;  the  feast  ever  spread 


THE  SIBYL  AND  THE  SHADES. 


12  i 


before  the  hungry  eyes  and  ever  vanishing ;  the  rock 
overhanging  the  head  of  the  guilty,  ever  ready  to  fall ; 
the  stone  that  has  to  be  rolled  with  vast  labour  up 
the  hill,  only  to  roll  back  again  for  ever ;  and,  most 
remarkable  of  all  punishments,  the  doom  of  the  rest¬ 
less  adventurer  Theseus  for  his  attempt  on  Proserpine 
— to  sit  for  ever  in  perpetual  inactivity.  And  amidst 
them  all  rings  out  the  warning  voice  of  Phlegyas  (con¬ 
demned  for  having  set  fire  to  the  temple  of  Apollo) 
from  his  place  of  torment : — 

“  Be  warned — learn  righteousness — and  reverence  heaven.” 

Here  again  we  have,  it  may  be,  a  protest  against 
the  teaching  of  Lucretius  :  a  distinct  rejection,  on 
Virgil's  part,  of  the  materialistic  doctrine  which 
would  deny  a  divine  Providence  and  human  respon¬ 
sibility. 

The  whole  conception  of  Virgil’s  hell  is  grand  and 
terrific.  Highly  material  and  sensational,  it  is  hardly 
more  so  than  mediaeval  divines  and  artists  have  repre¬ 
sented  ;  and  indeed  it  is  more  than  probable  that, 
consciously  or  unconsciously,  they  often  adopted 
pagan  notions  on  the  subject.  In  its  moral  teaching, 
whether  the  poet  intended  his  descriptions  to  be  taken 
in  their  literal  sense  or  interpreted  in  the  way  of 
parable,  his  creed  has  at  least  the  essential  elements  of 
truth. 

But  now  the  visitors  turn  their  steps  towards  the 
Elysian  fields,  and  after  duly  hanging  up  the  golden 
bough  at  the  gate  for  Proserpine’s  acceptance,  they 
enter  those  abodes  of  the  blest : — 


122 


THE  jENEID. 


“  Green  spa  jes,  folded  in  with  trees, 

A  paradise  of  pleasannces ; 

Around  the  champaign  mantles  bright 
The  fulness  of  purpureal  light ; 

Another  sun  and  stars  they  know, 

That  shine  like  ours,  but  shine  below.” 

There  are  assembled  the  illustrious  dead — warriors  who 
have  died  for  their  country;  priests  of  unstained  life; 
bards  who  have  never  perverted  their  powers ;  all 
■who  have  been  benefactors  of  mankind, — 

“  A  goodly  brotherhood,  bedight 
With  coronals  of  virgin  white.” 

Shadows  as  they  are,  all  the  items  of  their  happiness 
are  material.  The  games  of  the  palaestra,  the  song  of 
the  bard,  the  care  of  ghostly  horses  and  ghostly 
chariots,  form  the  interests  of  this  world  of  spirits  ; 
— the  interests  of  earth,  without  earth’s  substantial 
realities.  The  poet  found  his  imagination  fail  him,  as 
it, fails  us  all,  when  he  tries  to  paint  the  details  of  an 
incorporeal  existence. 

Among  these  happy  spirits  the  hero  finds  his  father 
Anchises.  He  recognises  and  addresses  him.  Anchi- 
ses  had  expected  the  visit,  and  receives  him  with  such 
tears  of  joy  as  spirits  may  shed.  But  when  Hhieas 
strives  to  embrace  him,  the  conditions  of  this  spiritual 
world  forbid  it : — 

“  Thrice  strove  the  son  his  sire  to  clasp; 

Thrice  the  vain  phantom  mocked  his  grasp ; 

No  vision  of  the  drowsy  night, 

No  airy  current,  half  so  light.” 


THE  SIBYL  AND  THE  SHADES. 


123 


The  occupation  of  Ancliises  in  these  regions  is  much 
more  philosophical  than  that  which  is  assigned  to  the 
other  shades.  He  is  contemplating  the  unborn  rulers 
of  the  Rome  that  is  to  be ;  the  spirits,  as  yet  incor¬ 
poreal,  which  are  soon  to  receive  a  new  body,  and  so 
go  forth  into  upper  air.  Deep  in  a  forest  lies  the 
river  Lethe,  and  a  countless  multitude  of  forms  are 
seen  thronging  its  banks,  to  drink  of  the  water  of  for¬ 
getfulness.  Oblivious  of  all  their  past  lives,  they  will 
thus  take  their  place  once  more,  in  changed  bodies, 
among  the  inhabitants  of  earth.  The  poet’s  adapta¬ 
tion  of  the  Pythagorean  doctrine  of  transmigration  is 
none  of  the  clearest ;  but  he  signifies  that,  after  the 
lapse  of  a  thousand  years  in  a  kind  of  Purgatory 
below,  these  spirits  are  again  summoned  to  play  their 
part,  in  new  bodies,  upon  earth.  Ancliises  can  read 
their  destinies  ;  and  lie  points  out  to  his  son  the 
shadowy  forms,  like  the  kings  in  ‘  Macbeth/  that  are 
to  be  the  kings  and  consuls  of  the  great  Roman 
nation.  First,  those  who  shall  reign  in  Alba — Sil- 
vius,  that  shall  be  born  to  iEneas  in  his  new  home, 
Capys,  and  Numitor;  young  Romulus,  son  of  the 
war-god  (he  wears  already  the  two-crested  helmet  in 
right  of  his  birth),  who  shall  transplant  the  sceptre  to 
the  seven-hilled  city,  and  the  kings  that  shall  succeed 
him  there.  He  shows  him,  too,  those  who  shall 
make  the  future  great  names  of  the  Republic — Brutus, 
the  Decii,  Camillus,  Fabius,  and  the  Scipios.  But 
the  centre  of  the  picture  is  reserved  for  one  great 
bouse : — 


124 


THE  JEN  El  D. 


11  Turn  hither  now  your  ranging  eye ; 

Behold  a  glorious  family, 

Your  sons  and  sons  of  Rome  : 

Lo  !  Caesar  there  and  all  his  seed, 
lulus’  progeny,  decreed 
To  pass  ’neath  heaven’s  high  dome. 

This,  this  is  he,  so  oft  the  theme 
Of  your  prophetic  fancy’s  dream, 

Augustus  Ceesar,  god  by  birth ; 

Restorer  of  the  age  of  gold 
In  lands  where  Saturn  ruled  of  old  : 

O’er  Inil  and  Garamant  extreme 
Shall  stretch  his  reign,  that  spans  the  earth. 

Look  to  that  land  which  lies  afar 
Beyond  the  path  of  sun  or  star, 

Where  Atlas  on  his  shoulder  rears 
The  burden  of  the  incumbent  spheres. 

Egypt  e’en  now  and  Caspia  hear 
The  muttered  voice  of  many  a  seer, 

And  Nile’s  seven  mouths,  disturbed  with  fear, 
Their  coming  conqueror  know.” 

The  future  glories  of  Rome  are  described  in  a  grand 
and  well  known  passage,  to  the  majestic  rhythm  of 
which  no  English  translator  seems  able  to  do  full 
justice.  The  poet  contrasts  the  warlike  genius  of  his 
countrymen  with  the  softer  accomplishments  of  their 
rivals  : — 

“  Others  with  softer  hand  may  mould  the  brass, 

Or  wake  to  warmer  life  the  marble  mass  ; 

Plead  at  the  bar  with  more  prevailing  force, 

Or  trace  more  justly  heaven’s  revolving  course  : 
Roman  !  be  thine  the  sovereign  arts  of  sway 
To  rule,  and  make  the  subject  world  obey; 


TEE  SIBYL  AND  TEE  SHADES. 


1 2D 


Give  peace  its  laws ;  respect  the  prostrate  foe ; 

Abase  the  lofty,  and  exalt  the  low.” 

— Symmons.* 

One  personal  sketch  the  poet’s  art  had  reserved  to 
the  last.  Anchises  points  out  to  his  visitor  the  shade 
that  is  to  be  the  great  Marcus  Mareellus,  five  times 
consul — the  “  Sword  of  Rome,”  as  Fabius  was  said  to 
be  its  Shield,  in  the  long  wars  with  Carthage,  and  the 
conqueror  of  Syracuse.  By  his  side  moves  the  figure 
of  an  armed  youth,  tall  and  beautiful,  but  whose  face 
is  sad,  and  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  ground.  The  com¬ 
pany  of  shadows  crowd  round  him,  murmuring  their 
admiration.  Who  is  it  1  iEneas  asks.  It  is  the 
young  Mareellus  of  the  Empire,  the  hope  and  promise 
of  Rome — the  son  of  Octavia,  sister  of  Augustus,  and 
destined,  as  many  thought,  to  be  his  successor.  Un¬ 
willingly  Anchises  replies  to  his  son’s  question  : — 

“  Ah  son  !  compel  ine  not  to  speak 
The  sorrows  of  our  race  ! 

That  youth  the  Fates  but  just  display 
To  earth,  nor  let  him  longer  stay  : 

*  But  none  of  the  recognised  translations  seem  to  come  so 
near  the  spirit  of  the  original  as  Lord  Macaulay’s  paraphrase — • 
for  of  course  it  is  only  a  paraphrase — in  his  lay  of  “  The  Pro* 
phecy  of  Capys :  ” — 

“  Leave  to  the  sons  of  Carthage 
The  rudder  and  the  oar  ; 

Leave  to  the  Greek  his  marble  nymphs 
And  scrolls  of  wordy  lore  : 

Thine,  Roman,  is  the  pilum  ; 

Roman,  the  sword  is  thine ; 

The  even  trench,  the  bristling  mound, 

The  legion’s  ordered  line.” 


12G 


THE  sENEfD. 


With  gifts  like  tliese  for  aye  to  hold, 

Rome’s  heart  had  e’en  been  overbold. 

Ah  !  what  a  groan  from  Mars’s  plain 
Shall  o’er  the  city  sound  ! 

How  wilt  thou  gaze  on  that  long  train. 

Old  Tiber,  rolling  to  the  main 
Beside  his  new- raised  mound  ! 

No  youth  of  Ilium’s  seed  inspires 
With  hope  as  fair  his  Latian  sires : 

Nor  Rome  shall  dandle  on  her  knee 
A  nursling  so  adored  as  he. 

0  piety  !  O  ancient  faith  ! 

0  hand  untamed  in  battle  scathe  ! 

No  foe  had  lived  before  his  sword, 

Stemmed  he  on  foot  the  war’s  red  tide 
Or  with  relentless  rowel  gored 
His  foaming  charger’s  side. 

Dear  child  of  pity  !  shouldst  thou  burst 
The  dungeon-bars  of  Fate  accurst, 

Our  own  Marcellus  thou  ! 

Bring  lilies  here,  in  handfuls  bring  : 

Their  lustrous  blooms  I  fain  would  fling 
Such  honour  to  a  grandson’s  shade 
By  grandsire  hands  may  well  be  paid  : 

Yet  0  !  it  ’vails  not  now  !  ” 

He  had  died  not  long  before,  in  his  twentieth  year, 
intensely  lamented  both  by  his  family  and  the  people. 

The  recital  of  the  passage  by  the  poet  before  his 
imperial  audience  had  a  more  striking  effect  than  even 
he  himself  could  have  expected.  Octavia  swooned 
away,  and  had  to  be  removed  by  her  attendants, — 
sending,  however,  magnificent  presents  afterwards  to 
the  poet  for  his  eulogy  on  her  dead  son.* 

*  Yirgil  is  said  to  have  received  from  her  what  would  amount, 


THE  SIBYL  AND  THE  SHADES. 


127 


The  biographers  add,  that  Augustus  commanded 
Virgil  to  read  no  further  on  that  day,  and  that  the 
poet  replied  he  had  already  ended  the  subject.  He  has 
not  much  more  to  say  in  this  Sixth  Book.  Anchises 
gives  his  son  some  prophetic  intimations  as  to  his 
future  fortunes  in  Italy,  and  then  escorts  his  visitors 
to  the  gates  of  Sleep. 

“  Sleep  gives  his  name  to  portals  twain  : 

One  all  of  horn,  they  say, 

Through  which  authentic  spectres  gain 
Quick  exit  into  day, 

And  one  which  bright  with  ivory  gleams, 

Whence  Pluto  sends  delusive  dreams. 

Conversing  still,  the  sire  attends 
The  travellers  on  their  road, 

And  through  the  ivory  portal  sends 
From  forth  the  unseen  abode.” 

The  lines  have  been  taken  to  mean  that  this  visit  to 
the  shades  was,  after  all,  but  a  dream. 

in  our  money,  to  above  £2000 — “a  round  sum,”  remarks 
Dry  den,  with  something  like  professional  envy,  “  for  twenty- 
seven  verses.” 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  TROJANS  LAND  IN  LATIUM. 

It  has  been  said  that  this  poem  combines  in  some  de¬ 
gree  the  characters  both  of  the  Iliad  and  of  the  Odyssey. 
Up  to  this  point  we  have  had  the  wanderings  and 
adventures  of  the  Trojan  hero :  he  has  been  the 
Ulysses  of  his  own  tale.  Henceforth  we  have  a  tale 
of  the  camp  and  the  battle-field,  of  siege  and  defence, 
and  personal  combat ;  and  we  are  reminded,  in  almost 
every  passage,  of  the  stirring  scenes  of  the  Iliad. 

./Eneas,  on  his  ascent  into  upper  air^ rejoins  his  crew, 
and  the  fleet,  setting  sail  from  Cumae,  enters  the  noble 
harbour  of  Caieta.  Hot  that  the  place  had  any  such 
name  as  yet ;  but  there  the  hero  buries  his  old  nurse, 
and  gives  her  name  to  the  spot.  Once  more  embark¬ 
ing,  they  pass  the  promontory  of  Circe,  and  hear,  as 
they  sail  by,  the  roars  and  yells  of  the  unhappy  prisoners, 
changed  by  the  spells  of  the  sorceress  into  the  shape 
of  brutes,  whom  she  holds  in  bondage  there.  They 
listen  and  shudder,  and  bless  the  favouring  gale  which 
bears  them  away  from  such  perilous  neighbourhood. 
Then,  with  the  morrow’s  dawn,  the  fleet  enters  the 


THE  TROJANS  LAND  IN  LATIUM.  129 


The  picture  of  the  galleys  going 


up  the  stream  is  very  beautiful : — 

“  The  sea  was  reddening  with  the  dawn  : 

The  queen  of  morn  on  high 
Was  seen  in  rosy  chariot  drawn 
Against  a  saffron  sky, 

When  on  the  bosom  of  the  deep 
The  Zephyrs  dropped  at  once  to  sleep, 

And,  struck  with  calm,  the  tired  oars  strain 
Against  the  smooth  unmoving  main. 

Now  from  the  deep  iEneas  sees 
A  mighty  grove  of  glancing  trees. 
Embowered  amid  the  silvan  scene 
Old  Tiber  winds  his  banks  between, 

And  in  the  lap  of  ocean  pours 
His  gulfy  stream,  his  sandy  stores. 

Around,  gay  birds  of  diverse  wing, 
Accustomed  there  to  fly  or  sing, 

Were  fluttering  on  from  spray  to  spray 
And  soothing  ether  with  their  lay. 

He  bids  his  comrades  turn  aside 
And  landward  set  each  vessel’s  head, 

And  enters  in  triumphant  pride 


The  river’s  shadowy  bed.” 


War  is  now  the  subject,  and  Homer  is  the  model.  Yet 
the  Roman  poet  never  shows  his  individual  genius 
more  strongly  than  in  his  treatment  of  the  external 
^scenery  amidst  which  his  action  lies.  He  is  still  the 
j  worshipper  of  Nature,  even  while  he  sets  himself  to 
.sing  of  battles,  as  he  was  in  his  Pastorals  and  Georgies. 
Homer  tells  us  of  the  rivers  of  the  Troad,  Simois  and 
Scamander — but  it  is  only  as  they  affect  Hector  or 
Achilles ;  his  heart  is  all  the  while  with  the  combat- 
a.  c.  vol.  v.  i 


130 


THE  jENEID. 


ante,  not  with  the  flowing  river.  Not  so  Yirgil :  with 
him  wo  feel  the  cool  breeze,  we  see  the  glancing 
shadow  of  the  trees  upon  the  river,  we  hear  the 
flatter  of  the  startled  birds,  and  the  long  plash  of  the 
oars  in  the  water :  we  sail  with  EEneas  on  a  party  of 
pleasure,  rather  than  a  voyage  of  conquest. 

Latium  is  reached  at  last.  They  moor  their  galleys 
under  the  trees  which  fringe  the  river  -  banks,  and 
land  to  make  their  morning  meal.  It  is  but  a  scant 
one.  Such  wild  fruits  as  they  can  collect  are  laid 
upon  the  wheaten  cakes  which  they  have  brought 
with  them,  and  when  the  fruit  is  finished  they  attack 
the  cakes  themselves.  “  Lo !  ”  exclaims  lulus — “  we 
are  eating  our  tables!”  Joyfully  JEneas  recognises, 
in  the  boy’s  involuntary  interpretation,  the  fulfilment 
of  the  curse  of  the  Harpies,* *  and  of  certain  strange 
words  of  his  father  Anchises,  that  when  they  were 
reduced  to  “  eat  their  tables,”  then  they  had  found 
their  destined  home,  and  might  begin  to  build  their 
city.  This,  then,  is  their  promised  rest.  He  pours 
libations  and  offers  prayers  to  the  gods  of  the  land, 
and  peals  of  thunder  from  a  cloudless  sky  seem  to 
announce  that  the  invocation  is  accepted. 

As  soon  as  the  moon  rises,  scouts  are  sent  out  to 
explore  the  country.  The  king  of  the  land-is— old 
Latinus,  whose  palace  is  near  at  hand.  He  has  one 

only  daughter,  Lavinia.  for  whose  hand  all  the  neigh- 
Touring  princes  have  long  been  suitors.  Turnus  of 
Ardea,  the  gallant  chief  of  the  Rutuli,  tallest  and 
handsomest  of  all  the  rivals,  has  the  goodwill  of  the 

*  See  p.  66. 


THE  TROJANS  LAND  IN  LATIUM. 


131 


queen-mother ;  the  maiden’s  own  choice  in  such  a 
matter  being  the  last  consideration  which  would  enter 
into  the  thought  of  a  Roman  poet.  When  the  Trojan 
chief  has  thus  informed  himself  in  some  measure  as 
to  the  localities,  he  sends  a  formal  embassy  to  King 
Latinus’s  court,  carrying  presents  in  token  of  goodwill. 
Meanwhile  he  busies  himself  in  hurriedly  marking  out 
the  boundaries  of  his  new  town,  and  fencing  it  round 
witli  an  earthen  rampart  and  a  palisade. 

The  strangers  are  ushered  into  the  presence  of 
Latinus,  where  he  sits  in  his  ancestral  palace,  sur¬ 
rounded  by  the  cedar  statues  of  the  demi-gods  and 
heroes  of  his  line. 

“  There  too  were  spoils  of  bygone  wars 
Hung  on  the  portals, — captive  cars, 

Strong  city-gates  with  massive  bars, 

And  battle-axes  keen, 

And  plumy  cones  from  helmets  shorn, 

And  beaks  from  vanquished  vessels  torn, 

And  darts,  and  bucklers  sheen.” 

He  knows  at  once  who  his  visitors  are.  Strange  por- 
tents  had  long  disturbed  his  court,  and  had  warned 
him  that  his  daughter  must  wed  with  no  prince  of  ' 

Latian  race :  that  a  foreign  host  and  a  stranger  bride¬ 
groom  will  come  to  claim  her,  and  that  the  kings  who 
shall  spring  from  this  union  will  spread  the  Rati  an 
name  from  s?a  to  sea.  He  inquires  the  strangers' 
errand  courteously,  and  the  Trojan  Ilioneus,  as  spokes 
man  of  the  embassy,  thus  makes  reply  : — 

“We  come  not  to  your  friendly  coast 
By  random  gale  o’er  ocean  tost, 


132 


THE  jENEID. 


Nor  land  nor  star  has  made  us  stray 

From  our  determined  line  of  way : 

Of  steady  purpose  one  and  all 

We  flock  beneath  your  city  wall, 

Driven  from  an  empire,  greater  none 

Within  the  circuit  of  the  sun. 

Jove  is  our  sire  :  to  Jove’s  high  race 

We,  Dardans  born,  our  lineage  trace : 

Jove’s  seed,  the  monarch  we  obey, 

iEneas,  sends  us  here  to-day. 

How  fierce  a  storm  from  Argos  sent 

On  Ida’s  plains  its  fury  spent, 

How  Fate  in  dire  collision  hurled 

The  eastern  and  the  western  world, 

E’en  he  has  heard,  whom  earth’s  last  verge 

J  ust  separates  from  the  circling  surge, 

And  he  who,  to  his  kind  unknown, 

Dwells  midmost  ’neath  the  torrid  zone. 

Swept  by  that  deluge  o’er  the  foam 

For  our  lorn  gods  we  ask  a  home  : 

A  belt  of  sand  is  all  we  crave, 

And  man’s  free  birthright,  air  and  wave. 

We  shall  not  shame  your  Latin  crown, 

Nor  light  shall  be  your  own  renown, 

Nor  time  obliterate  the  debt, 

Nor  Italy  the  hour  regret 

When  Troy  with  outstretched  arms  she  met 

I  swear  it  bv  ^Eneas’  fate, 

«/  ' 

By  that  right  hand  which  makes  him  great. 
In  peace  and  war  approved  alike 
A  friend  to  aid,  a  foe  to  strike, 

Full  oft  have  mighty  nations — nay, 

Disdain  not  that  unsought  we  pray, 

Nor  deem  that  wreaths  and  lowly  speech 
The  grandeur  of  our  name  impeach — 

Full  oft  with  zeal  and  earnest  prayers 
Have  nations  wooed  us  to  be  theirs ; 


THE  TROJANS  LAND  IN  LATIUM. 


133 


But  Heaven’s  high  fate,  with  stern  command, 
Impelled  us  still  to  this  your  land. 

Here  Dardanus  was  born,  and  here 
Apollo  bids  our  race  return  : 

To  Tyrrhene  Tiber  points  the  seer 
And  pure  Numicius’  hallowed  urn. 

These  presents  too  our  hands  convey, 

Scant  relics  of  a  happier  day, 

From  burning  Ilium  snatched  away. 

From  this  bright  gold  before  the  shrine 
His  sire  Anchises  poured  the  wine  : 

With  these  adornments  Priam  sate 
’Mid  gathering  crowds  in  kingly  state, 

The  sceptre  and  the  diadem  : 

Troy’s  women  wrought  the  vesture’s  hem.” 

The  king  muses  thoughtfully  for  a  while :  but  ho 
recognises  the  fulfilment  of  the  auguries.  Let  iEneas 
come — he  is  welcome.  If  this  be  the  bridegroom  senFBy 
heaven,  he  shall  be  more  welcome  still.  He  sends  back 
the  ambassadors  in  right  royal  fashion,  all  mounted  on 
choice  horses  from  his  own  stud,  and  with  a  chariot  of 
honour  to  convey  their  chief  to  an  interview. 

Juno’s  relentless  hatred  is  stirred  once  more.  Will 
neither  fire  nor  sword  kill,  nor  water  drown,  these 
accursed  Trojans?  Shall  she,  the  Queen  of  Heaven, 
be  baffled  by  a  mortal  like  iEneas?  If  it  he  written 
in  the  fates  that  he  is  to  wed  Lavinia,  her-  marriage- 
dower  shall  be  paid  in  Trojan  and  Latian  blood. 
Venus  shall  find  that  she,  like  Hecuba,  has  borne  a 
firebrand — that  iEneas,  like  Paris,  shall  light  a  flame 
that  shall  consume  his  nation.  If  the  powers  of 
heaven  will  not  take  her  part,  she  will  seek  aid  from 


134 


TEE  jENE ID. 


hell.  She  summons  the  Fury  Alecto  from  the  shades 
below,  and  bids  her  sow  strife  between  the  people  of 
Latinus  and  their  foreign  visitors. 

The  Fury,  rejoicing  in  her  errand,  seeks  the  cham¬ 
ber  of  Latinus’s  queen,  and  darts  into  her  breast  one  of 
the  living  serpents  that  serve  her  for  coils  of  hair. 
Straightway  the  queen  is  seized  with  madness,  and, 
after  vainly  trying  to  rouse  her  husband  to  oppose 
this  foreign  marriage,  she  rushes  like  a  Bacchanal 
through  the  neighbouring  villages,  and  calls  upon  the 
mothers  of  Latium  to  avenge  her  wrongs  and  rescue 
her  daughter. 

Next  the  Fury  instils  the  same  venom  into  the 
heart  of  Turnus.  where  he  lies  in  his  town  of  Ardea. 
He  has  been  the  champion  of  Latium  against  their 
enemies  the  Tuscans,  and  this  is  their  gratitude — to 
give  his  promised  bride  to  another  !  The  young  chief 
leaps  from  his  couch,  calls  madly  for  his  arms,  and 
orders  an  instant  march  upon  Latinus’s  capital.  He 
will  expel  these  intruders  at  once,  and  demand  the 
princess  from  her  father  by  force  of  arms. 

Meanwhile — still  at  the  instigation  of  Alecto — the 
seeds  of  quarrel  have  been  sown  between  the  men  of 
Latium  and  their  Trojan  guests.  There  is  a  tame  deer 
which  has  been  nursed  in  the  house  of  Tyrrheus,  the 
ranger  of  the  royal  forest, — a  pet  and  favourite  with 
all  the  country-folk. 

“  Fair  Sylvia,  daughter  of  the  race, 

Its  horns  with  leaves  would  interlace, 

Comb  smooth  its  shaggy  coat,  and  lave 
Its  body  in  the  crystal  wave. 


THE  TROJANS  LAND  IN  LAT1UM. 


135 


Tame  and  obedient,  it  would  stray 
Free  through  the  woods  a  summer’s  day, 

And  home  again  at  night  repair, 

E’en  of  itself,  how  late  soe’er.” 

In  evil  hour  Ascanius,  riding  out  with  a  hunting- 
party,  gets  his  hounds  upon  the  scent,  and  shoots  the 
poor  animal  as  it  floats  quietly  down  the  river  in  the 
noon-day  heat.  It  has  just  strength  to  carry  the 
Trojan  arrow  in  its  body  to  its  mistress’s  door,  and  die 
moaning  at  her  feet.*  Tyrrheus  and  his  household 
are  mad  with  rage,  and  rouse  the  whole  country-side 
against  this  wanton  outrage,  as  they  hold  it,  on  the 
part  of  the  strangers.  The  shepherd’s  horn  sounds 
out  its  summons  to  the  whole  neighbourhood;  and 
the  angry  rustics,  when  they  hear  the  story,  seize 
axes,  staves,  and  such  rude  weapons  as  come  first  to 
hand,  and  attack  the  young  prince  and  his  hunting- 
party.  The  Trojans  come  out  from  their  intrenchment 
to  rescue  their  friends,  and  the  fray  now  becomes  a 
regular  battle,  no  longer  fought  with  stakes  and  hunting 
implements,  but  with  sword  and  spear.  Blood  is  soon 
shed;  the  rustic  weapons  are  no  match  for  the  Trojan 
steel;  and  young  Almo,  the  ranger’s  son,  is  carried 
home  dead,  amongst  others.  Almost  a  sadder  loss  is 

*  Andrew  Marvell  most  likely  borrowed  his  thought  from  the 
Koman  poet  in  his  graceful  lines,  “  The  Nymph’s  Complaint — 

“  The  wanton  troopers,  riding  by, 

Have  shot  my  fawn,  and  it  will  die. 

Ungentle  men  !  they  cannot  thrive 
Who  killed  thee.  Thou  ne’er  didst  aliva 
Them  any  harm,  alas  !  nor  could 
Thy  death  yet  do  them  any  good.” 


136 


THE  jENEID. 


that  of  the  good  old  yeoman  Galsesus,  who  yokes  a 
hundred  ploughs,  and  whose  character  gives  him  even 
more  influence  than  his  wealth.  He  is  slain  as  he 
stands  between  the  combatants,  vainly  pleading  for 
peace. 

The  bodies  are  carried  through  the  city  streets,  as 
in  a  modern  revolution,  by  way  of  demonstration. 
There  they  make  their  dumb  appeal  to  the  passions  of 
the  people — 

“  Young  Almo  in  his  comely  grace, 

And  old  Gakesus’  mangled  face  ” — 

and  the  appeal  is  answered  by  a  universal  cry  for 
“  War !  ” 


< 


CHAPTER  YIIL 


THE  MUSTER  OP  THE  LATIN  TRIBES. 

/ 

Turnus  arrives  amongst  them  from  Ardea  at  this  critical 
moment,  and  shouts  fiercely  for  instant  battle.  In 
vain  does  King  Latinus  quote  the  oracle,  and  refuse 
to  fight  against  the  destinies.  He  will  be  no  party  to 
a  bloody  and  useless  war.  But  the  impetuosity  of  an 
angry  populace  is  too  strong  for  him.  Powerless  to 
stem  the  popular  current,  he  nevertheless  delivers  his 
own  soul,  and  abdicates  his  sovereignty.  The  guilt  of 
the  blood  that  shall  be  shed  must  rest  on  those  who 
stir  the  war.  He  warns  Turnus  that  he  may  yet  live 
to  rue  the  part  he  has  taken,  when  too  late  :  for  him¬ 
self,  death  will  soon  put  an  end  to  all  troubles. 

By  an  old  tradition, — handed  on,  as  the  poet  will 
have  it,  from  these  old  days  of  Latium  to  the  Pome  of 
Augustus, — the  powers  of  War  were  held  to  be  con* 
fined  within  the  gates  of  Janus,  the  porter  of  the  Im¬ 
mortals,  only  to  be  let  loose  by  solemn  act  of  state 
authority. 

“  Two  gates  there  stand  of  War— ’t  was  so 
Our  fathers  named  them  long  ago — 


138 


TI1E  jENEID. 


The  war-god’s  terrors  round  them  spread 
An  atmosphere  of  sacred  dread. 

A  hundred  bolts  the  entrance  guard, 

And  Janus  there  keeps  watch  and  ward. 

These,  when  his  peers  on  war  decide, 

The  consul,  all  in  antique  pride 
Of  Gabine  cincture  deftly  tied 
And  purple-striped  attire, 

With  grating  noise  himself  unbars, 

And  calls  aloud  on  Father  Mars  : 

The  warrior  train  takes  up  the  cry, 

And  horns  with  brazen  symphony 
Their  hoarse  assent  conspire.” 

Since  Latinus  will  not  do  his  office,  Juno  in  person — 
so  the  poet  lias  it — descends  from  heaven,  smites  upon 
the  barred  portals,  and  “lets  slip  the  dogs  of  war.” 

“  Ausonia,  all  inert  before, 

Takes  fire  and  blazes  to  the  core  : 

And  some  on  foot  their  march  essay, 

Some,  mounted,  storm  along  the  way; 

To  arms  !  cry  one  and  all : 

With  unctuous  lard  their  shields  they  clean, 

And  make  their  javelins  bright  and  sheen, 

Their  axes  on  the  whetstone  grind ; 

Look  how  that  banner  takes  the  wind  ! 

Hark  to  yon  trumpet’s  call ! 

Five  mighty  towns,  with  anvils  set, 

In  emulous  haste  their  weapons  whet : 

Crustumium,  Tibur  the  renowned, 

And  strong  Atina  there  are  found, 

And  Ardea,  and  Antemnce  crowned 
With  turrets  round  her  wall. 

Steel  caps  they  frame  their  brows  to  fit, 

And  osier  twigs  for  bucklers  knit : 


TEE  MUSTER  OF  TEE  LATIN  TRIBES. 


139 


Or  twist  the  hauberk’s  brazen  mail 
And  mould  them  greaves  of  silver  pale  : 

To  these  has  passed  the  homage  paid 
Erewhile  to  ploughshare,  scythe,  and  spade : 

Each  brings  his  father’s  battered  blade, 

And  smelts  in  fire  anew  : 

And  now  the  clarions  pierce  the  skies  : 

From  rank  to  rank  the  watchword  flies : 

This  tears  his  helmet  from  the  wall, 

That  drags  his  war-horse  from  the  stall, 

Dons  three-piled  mail  and  ample  shield, 

And  girds  him  for  the  embattled  field 
With  falchion  tried  and  true.” 

The  whole  remaining  portion  of  this  seventh  book 
is  in  Virgil’s  most  spirited  style.  And  it  is  here  that 
the  harp  of  our  northern  minstrel  answers  best  to  Mr 
Conington’s  touch.  The  gathering  of  the  clans — for 
it  is  nothing  else — the  rapid  sketches  of  the  chiefs  as 
they  pass  in  succession  with  their  array  of  followers — 
the  details  of  costume — the  legendary  tale  which  the 
poet  has  to  tell  of  more  than  one  of  them  as  he  passes 
them  in  review — even  the  devices  borne  on  the  shields, 
—  -are  all  features  in  which  Scott  delighted  as  thorough¬ 
ly  as  Virgil,  and  which  his  well-known  rhythm  suits 
better  than  any  other  which  a  translator  could 
choose.  Some  few  portions  of  this  stirring  war¬ 
like  diorama  must  content  the  readers  of  these 
pages.  The  first  who  passes  is  the  terrible  chief  of 
Agylla,  who  fears  neither  god  nor  man,  and  whose 
notorious  cruelties  have  so  exasperated  his  own  people 
against  him  that  he  is  now  a  refugee  in  the  court  of 
Tumus : — 


14C 


THE  jENEID. 


“  Mezentius  first  from  Tyrrhene  coast, 

Who  mocks  at  heaven,  arrays  his  host, 

And  braves  the  battle’s  storm  ; 

His  son,  young  Lausus,  at  his  side, 

Excelled  by  none  in  beauty’s  pride, 

Save  Turnus’  comely  form  : 

Lausus,  the  tamer  of  the  steed, 

The  conqueror  of  the  silvan  breed, 

Leads  from  Agylla’s  towers  in  vain 
A  thousand  youths,  a  valiant  train : 

Ah  happy,  had  the  son  been  blest 
In  hearkening  to  his  sire’s  behest, 

Or  had  the  sire  from  whom  he  came 
Had  other  nature,  other  name  !  ” 

In  the  description  of  the  next  leader  we  have  some 
notice  of  early  heraldry : — 

“  Next  drives  along  the  grassy  meads 
His  palm-crowned  car  and  conquering  steeds 
Fair  Aventinus,  princely  heir 
Of  Hercules  the  brave  and  fair, 

And  for  his  proud  escutcheon  takes 
His  father’s  Hydra  and  her  snakes. 

’Twas  he  that  priestess  Rhea  bare, 

A  stealthy  birth,  to  upper  air, 

’Mid  shades  of  woody  Aventine 

Mingling  her  own  with  heavenly  blood, 

When  triumph-llushed  from  Geryon  slain 
Alcides  touched  the  Latian  plain, 

And  bathed  Iberia’s  distant  kine 
In  Tuscan  Tiber’s  flood. 

Long  pikes  and  poles  his  bands  uprear, 

The  shapely  blade,  the  Sabine  spear. 

Himself  on  foot,  with  lion’s  skin, 


THE  MUSTER  OF  THE  LATIN  TRIBES.  HI 


Whose  long  white  teeth  with  ghastly  grin 
Clasp  like  a  helmet  brow  and  chin, 

Joins  the  proud  chiefs  in  rude  attire, 

A.nd  flaunts  the  emblem  of  his  sire.” 

Corae»  and  Catillus,  twin-brothers  from  the  old  town 
of  Tibor;  Cseculus,  from  the  neighbouring  Prseneste 
— reputed  son  of  Yulcan,  because  said  to  have  been 
found  ns  an  infant  lying  amidst  the  forge  embers — 
whose  following  take  the  field  with  slings  and  jave¬ 
lins,  each  man  with  his  left  foot  bare  to  give  him 
firmer  stepping-hold  ;  Clausus  the  Sabine,  from  whom 
sprang  the  great  house  of  the  Claudii — some  of  whom 
assuredly  were  listening  to  the  poet’s  recitation ; 
Halaesus,  of  the  seed  of  Agamemnon,  sworn  foe  to 
all  who  bear  the  hated  name  of  Trojan ;  and  a  host 
of  chiefs  of  lesser  name  and  inferior  powers,  join 
the  march.  Messapus,  the  “  horse  -  tamer,”  brings 
with  him  a  powerful  band  of  retainers  from  many 
a  city,  who  chant  the  deeds  of  their  leaders  as  they 
go— 

“  Like  snow-white  swans  in  liquid  air, 

When  homeward  from  their  food  they  fare, 

And  far  and  wide  melodious  notes 
Come  rippling  from  their  slender  throats, 

While  the  broad  stream  and  Asia’s  fen 
Reverberate  to  the  sound  again. 

Sure  none  had  thought  that  countless  crowd 
A  mail-clad  company ; 

It  rather  seemed  a  dusky  cloud 
Of  migrant  fowl,  that,  hoarse  and  loud, 

Press  landward  from  the  sea. 


142 


THE  JEN E ID. 


“  Came  too  from  old  Marruvia’s  realm, 

An  olive-garland  round  his  helm, 

Bold  Umbro,  priest  at  once  and  knight, 

By  king  Archippus  sent  to  fight : 

Who  baleful  serpents  knew  to  steep 
By  hand  and  voice  in  charmed  sleep, 

Soothed  their  fierce  wrath  with  subtlest  skill, 

And  from  their  bite  drew  off  the  ill. 

But  ah  !  his  medicines  could  not  heal 
The  death- wound  dealt  by  Dardan  steel : 

His  slumberous  charms  availed  him  nought, 

Nor  herbs  on  Marsian  mountains  sought, 

And  cropped  with  magic  shears  : 

For  thee  Anguitia’s  woody  cave, 

For  thee  the  glassy  Fucine  wave, 

For  thee  the  lake  shed  tears.” 

Nearly  last  of  the  warlike  array,  who  all  acknowledge 
him  as  their  leader,  comes  the  prince  of  the  Rutuli. 
iEneas’s  rival  and  enemy  : — 

“  In  foremost  rank  see  Turnus  move, 

His  comely  head  the  rest  above  : 

On  his  tall  helm  with  triple  cone 
Cliimsera  in  relief  is  shown  ; 

The  monster’s  gaping  jaws  expire 
Hot  volumes  of  /Etnean  fire  : 

And  still  she  flames  and  raves  the  more 
The  deeper  floats  the  field  with  gore. 

With  bristling  hide  and  lifted  horns, 

Io,  all  gold,  his  shield  adorns, 

E’en  as  in  life  she  stood  ; 

There  too  is  Argus,  warder  stem, 

And  Inaclius  from  graven  urn, 

Her  father,  pours  his  flood.” 

He  brings  with  him  the  largest  host  of  all — a  cloud  of 


THE  MUSTER  OF  THE  LATIN  TRIBES.  143 


well-armed  footmen  of  various  tribes,  whose  shields 
seem  to  cover  the  plain. 

This  pretty  picture  of  Camilla,  the  Yolscian  hunt¬ 
ress  (whom  Dry  den  very  ungallantly  terms  a  “  virago  ”), 
vowed  from  her  childhood  to  Diana — the  prototype  of 
Tasso’s  Clorinda,  but  far  more  attractive — clot  js  at 
once  the  warlike  pageant  and  the  book : — 

“  Last  marches  forth  for  Lati urn’s  sake 
Camilla  fair,  the  Yolscian  maid, 

A  troop  of  horsemen  in  her  wake 
In  pomp  of  gleaming  steel  arrayed  ; 

Stern  warrior-queen  !  those  tender  hands 
Ne’er  plied  Minerva’s  ministries  : 

A  virgin  in  the  fight  she  stands, 

Or  winged  winds  in  speed  outvies  : 

Nay,  she  could  fly  o’er  fields  of  grain 
Nor  crush  in  flight  the  tapering  wheat, 

Or  skim  the  surface  of  the  main 
Nor  let  the  billows  touch  her  feet. 

Where’er  she  moves,  from  house  and  land 
The  youths  and  ancient  matrons  throng, 

And  fixed  in  greedy  wonder  stand, 

Beholding  as  she  speeds  along  : 

In  kingly  dye  that  scarf  was  dipped  : 

’Tis  gold  confines  those  tresses’  flow  : 

Her  pastoral  wand  with  steel  is  tipped, 

And  Lycian  are  her  shafts  and  bow.”  * 

*  No  doubt  the  Camilla  of  the  Roman  poet  is  a  reminiscence 
of  the  Amazon  Renthesilea  in  Homer,  just  as  the  fairy  footstep, 
that  left  no  trace  on  sea  or  land,  is  borrowed  from  those  won¬ 
drous  mares  of  Ericthonius  to  whom  Homer  assigns  the  same 
performance.  But  the  copy  far  surpasses  the  original  in  grace 
and  beauty.  Our  English  poets  have  made  free  use  of  this  fancy 
of  the  footsteps  of  beauty'  none  more  sweetly  than  Jonson 


144 


THE  JEN  El  D. 


The  story  of  Camilla’s  infancy,  which  is  given  us 
subsequently,  is  quite  in  accordance  with  this  de¬ 
scription.  Her  father,  driven  from  his  territory,  like 
Mezentius,  by  an  angry  people,  had  carried  his  infant 
daughter  with  him  in  his  flight.  Hard  pressed  by  his 
pursuers,  he  came  to  the  banks  of  a  river.  To  swim 
across  the  stream,  though  swollen  by  winter  torrents, 
were  easy  for  himself :  but  how  to  carry  his  child  1 
With  brief  prayer  and  vow  to  the  huntress  Diana,  he 
tied  her  to  a  spear,  and  threw  her  across.  The  child 
alighted  safely  on  the  other  side,  and  the  father  fol¬ 
lowed.  Fed  on  mares’  milk,  and  exercised  from 
infancy  in  the  use  of  the  bow,  Camilla  had  grown 
up  in  the  forest,  vowed  to  maidenhood  and  to  Diana. 

in  his  ‘  Sad  Shepherd,  wuere  ZEglamour  laments  his  lost 
Earing : — 

“  Here  she  was  wont  to  go,  and  here,  and  here — 

J ust  where  those  daisies,  pinks,  and  violets  grow ; 

The  world  may  find  the  spring  by  following  her. 

For  other  print  her  airy  steps  ne’er  left. 

Her  treading  would  not  bend  a  blade  of  grass. 

Or  shake  the  downy  blow-bell  from  his  stalk  : 

But  like  the  south-west  wind  she  shot  along, 

And  where  she  went  the  flowers  took  thickest  root. 

As  she  had  sowed  them  with  her  odorous  foot.” 

— The  ‘Sad  Shepherd/  Act  I.  sc.  1. 


CHAPTER  IX. 


J5NEAS  MAKES  ALLIANCE  WITH  EVANDER. 

The  turn  of  events  gives  the  Trojan  chief  much 
natural  disquiet.  All  Latium  is  in  arms  against  his 
little  force  of  adventurers.  He  lies  down  within  his 
lines  to  a  disturbed  and  anxious  rest,  where  he  has  a 
remarkable  vision.  A  figure  rises,  wrapped  in  a  grey 
mantle,  with  his  brows  crowned  with  reed.  It  is 
^Father  Tiber,”  the  tutelary  genius  of  the  Rome  that 
shall  he.  He  bids  his  visitor  he  of  good  cheer :  his 
coming  has  been  long  looked  for.  He  renews,  for  his 
encouragement,  the  old  oracle  of  Anchises  : — 

“  On  woody  banks  before  your  eye 
A  thirty -farrowed  sow  shall  lie, 

Her  whole  white  length  on  earth  stretched  out, 

Her  young,  as  white,  her  teats  about, 

Sign  that  when  thirty  years  come  round 
‘  White  Alba  ’  shall  Ascanius  found.” 

He  will  find  allies,  too,  within  reach.  A_colojiy  from 
Arcadia  have  migrated  to  Italy  under  their  king  Evan- 
der,  and  have  founded  in  the  neighbouring  mountains 
A.  C.  vol.  V.  K 


146 


THE  JLNE1D. 


a  city  called  Pallanteum.  He  will  reach  the  place  by 
sailing  up  the  stream,  and  from  them,  ever  at-  feud 
with  their  Latian  neighbours,  he  will  get  the  aid  he 
requires. 

zEneas  wakes  from  sleep,  arms  the  crews  of  two  of 
his  galleys,  and  begins  his  voyage  up  the  course  of  the 
friendly  Tiber,  who  purposely  calms  his  waves  and 
moderates  his  current.  The  sow  with  her  thirty 
young  is  soon  found,  and  duly  sacrificed,  as  the  river- 
genius  has  warned  him,  to  propitiate  the  wrath  of 
Juno.  Evander,  with  his  son  Pallas  and  all  his 
people,  is  keeping  high  festival  to  Hercules,  when  the 
masts  of  the  Trojan  galleys  are  suddenly  seen  among 
the  trees  as  they  turn  a  bend  of  the  river.  The 
strangers  are  hailed  by  Pallas  ;  and  ASneas,  bearing  in 
his  band  the  olive-bough  of  a  suppliant,  is  led  by  the 
young  chief  before  his  father.  In  a  well  -  studied 
speech  he  claims  kindred  with  the  Arcadian  hero, 
albeit  a  Trojan  and  Greek  might  at  first  sight  seem 
natural  enemies.  Dardanus  of  Troy  traced  his  descent 
from  Atlas  —  Evander’s  genealogy  goes  back  to  the 
same  great  ancestor.  Their  mutual  enmity  with  the 
Latians  should  be  also  a  bond  of  union :  and  lo  !  iEneas 
has  shown  his  goodwill  and  confidence  in  thus  placing 
himself  fearlessly  in  Evander’s  power.  Evander  is 
the  Hestor  of  the  iEneid ; — somewhat  given  to  long 
stories  and  reminiscences  of  his  own  youth.  He  had 
known  his  present  visitor’s  father  well,  in  the  years 
gone  by,  when  the  Trojan  court  had  visited  the 
country  of  Priam’s  sister  Hesione. 


/ENEAS  MAKES  ALLIANCE  WITH  EVANDER.  147 


“  A  boy  was  I,  a  stripling  lad, 

My  clieek  with  youth’s  first  blossom  clad  ; 

I  gazed  at  Priam  and  his  train 
Of  Trojan  lords,  and  gazed  again  : 

But  great  Anchises,  princely  tall, 

Was  more  than  Priam,  more  than  all. 

With  boyish  zeal  I  schemed  and  planned 
To  greet  the  chief,  and  grasp  his  hand, 

I  ventured,  and  with  eager  zest 
To  Pheneus  brought  my  honoured  guest. 

A  Lycian  quiver  he  bestowed 
At  parting,  with  its  arrowy  load, 

A  gold- wrought  scarf,  and  bridle-reins 
Of  gold,  which  Pallas  still  retains.” 

He  tells  his  visitor  also,  at  very  considerable  length, 
the  story  of  Hercules  slaying  the  monster  Cacus,  son 
of  Vulcan,  half  man  and  half  berfet,  whose  breath  was  as 
flames  of  fire,  and  whose  diet  was  human  flesh — the 
prototype  of  the  giants  of  later  fiction.  He  points  out 
also  to  his  guest  the  local  features  of  the  country — for 
they  are  standing  on  the  site  which  is  to  be  Rome, 
and  Pallanteum  is  to  become  the  Palatine  mount  of 
future  history.  Whatever  of  mythical  legend  the  poet 
mixed  up  in  his  topography,  he  knew  the  interest 
with  which  his  patrician  audience — for  antiquarian  ism 
was  almost  as  fashionable  in  the  court  of  the  Caesars 
as  it  is  now — would  listen  while,  by  the  mouth  of 
Evander,  he  •  dwelt  on  the  old  historic  localities  of 
the  imperial  city :  the  Carmental  gate,  named  after  the 
nympli  who  was  Evander’s  mother ;  the  grove  where 
Romulus  in  after-days  made  his  first  “  Asylum  ”  for 
the  motley  band  whom  he  gathered  round  him ;  the 


148 


THE  JZNEID. 


»  Tarpeian  rock ;  the  hill  on  which  was  to  stand  the 
Capitol ;  the  Janiculum,  with  its  Saturnian  walls,  the 
key  of  Rome’s  defences.  “  Now  ” — says  the  poet, 

speaking  in  his  own  person  of  the  glories  of  the  great 
city  in  his  own  day, — 

“  Now  all  is  golden — then  ’twas  all 
-  O’ergrown  with  trees  and  brushwood  talL 
E’en  their  rude  hinds  the  spot  revered  : 

•  •  •  •  •  • 

Here  in  this  grove,  these  wooded  steeps, 

Some  god  unknown  his  mansion  keeps  ; 

Arcadia’s  children  deem 
Their  eyes  have  looked  on  Jove’s  own  form, 

When  oft  he  summons  cloud  and  storm, 

And  seen  his  aegis  gleam.” 

A  league  is  made  between  the  Trojans  and  their  new 
friends.  King  Evander  confesses  that  his  own  power 
is  small,  hut  iEneas  has  arrived  at  a  fortunate  con¬ 
juncture.  The  Etruscans  of  Agylla,  who  have  just 
expelled  their  tyrant  Mezentius  for  his  cruelties,  have 
determined  to  pursue  him  to  the  death.  Rut  they 
have  been  warned  by  their  soothsayer  to  choose  a 
foreign  leader;  and  here  they  are  at  the  gates  of 
Pailanteum,  come  to  beseech  Evander  to  head  their 
expedition.  He  is  himself  too  old — his  son  Pallas  too 
inexperienced;  he  at  once  presents  to  them  iEneas  as 
a  heaven-sent  leader.  The  omens  are  all  favourable, 
and  both  troops  and  commander  are  well  pleased. 
Himeas  selects  the  best  of  his  crew,  whom  Evander 
furnishes  with  war-horses ;  the  rest  lie  sends  back  in 
the  galleys  to  bear  the  tidings  of  his  own  movements 


JIN  E AS  MAKES  ALLIANCE  WITH  EVAN  DEE.  149 


to  his  son  lulus,  and  to  charge  him  and  the  Trojans  to 
keep  close  within  their  rampart,  in  case  of  attack  during 
his  absence.  Taking  command  of  his  Etruscan  allies, 
and  followed  by  four  hundred  Arcadian  horse  under 
the  young  Pallas,  whom  his  father  gladly  sends,  as  the 
youths  of  noble  houses  were  sent  in  the  days  of 
knighthood,  to  learn  the  art  of  war  under  so  great  a 
captain,  iEneas  sets  out  on  his  march  for  Turnus’s 
capital.  The  old  king  does  not  part  from  his  son 
without  sad  misgivings ;  he  has  trusted  iEneas  with 
more  than  his  life. 


Venus  has  not  been  neglectful  of  her  son.  She 
has  persuaded  Vulcan  to  forge  for  him  weapons  and 


make.  The  fire-god  can  never  resist  her  blandishments; 
and  he  goes  down  to  the  forge  where  the  Cyclops  are 
ever  at  work,  in  the  caverns  beneath  the  Lipari  Is¬ 
lands,  off  the  coast  of  Sicily.  There  is  much  business 
in  hand  there  already.  Some  of  the  one-eyed  work¬ 
men  are  forging  bolts  for  Jupiter,  composed  of  four 
elements, — 

“  Three  rays  they  took  of  forky  hail, 

Of  watery  cloud  three  rays, 

Three  of  the  winged  southern  gale, 

Three  of  the  ruddy  blaze.”  * 

Some  are  finishing  a  war-chariot  for  Mars ;  others  are 
shaping  an  aegis  for  Minerva — a  shield  of  dragon’s 
scales  and  rings  of  gold.  But  their  master  bids  them 

*  The  thunderbolt  is  usually  represented  on  ancient  coins 
and  medallions  with  twelve  rays. 


150 


THE  TEN  El  D. 


put  all  these  tasks  aside ;  War,  and  Wisdom,  and 
even  Government  itself,  must  he  content  to  come  to 
a  standstill,  until  the  behests  of  Beauty  have  been 
obeyed. 

The  idea  of  the  Shield  of  ZEneas,  which  Yenus 
comes  and  lays  before  him  while  he  sleeps,  is  of  course 
borrowed  directly  from  Homer’s  Shield  of  Achilles. 

But  the  working  out  of  it  is  quite  original. _ Vulcan’s 

subject,  in  this  case,  is  not,  as  in  the  Shield  of  the 
Iliad,  an  epitome  of  human  life,  but  a  prophetic  his¬ 
tory  of  Rome.  The  whole  passage  in  which  it  is  ela¬ 
borately  described  is  of  remarkable  beauty  even  to  our 
modern  taste,  and  upon  a  Roman’s  ear  and  imagination 
must  have  had  a  wonderful  effect.  The  story  is  told 
in  eight  (or  perhaps  nine)  compartments,  filled  with 
the  leading  events  in  the  great  city’s  existence.  The 
two  first  contain  the  birth  of  Romulus,  and  the  union 
of  the  Romans  wTith  the  Sabines,  which  began  with 
the  seizure  of  the  Sabine  women: — 

“  There  too  the  mother- wolf  he  made 
In  Mars’s  cave  supinely  laid  : 

Around  her  udders  undismayed 
The  gamesome  infants  hung, 

While  she,  her  loose  neck  backward  thrown, 
Caressed  them  fondly,  one  by  one, 

And  shaped  them  with  her  tongue. 

Hard  by,  the  towers  of  Rome  he  drew 
And  Sabine  maids  in  public  view 
Snatched  ’mid  the  Circus  games  : 

So  ’twixt  the  fierce  Romulean  brood 
And  Tatius  with  his  Cures  rude 
A  sudden  war  upflames. 


AENEAS  MAKES  ALLIANCE  WITH  EVAN  HER.  151 


And  now  the  kings,  their  conflict  o’er, 
Stand  up  in  arms  Jove’s  shrine  before, 
From  goblets  pour  the  sacred  wine, 

And  make  their  peace  o’er  bleeding  swine.” 


The  doom  of  Mettius  the  Alban,  and  the  keeping  of 
the  Tiber  bridge  by  Horatius  against  Lars  Porsena, 
occupy  the  two  next  compartments.  JSText  comes 
the  defence  of  the  Capitol  against  the  Gauls  by 
Manlius  : — 

“  A  silver  goose  in  gilded  walls 
With  flapping  wings  announced  the  Gauls; 

And  through  the  wood  the  invaders  crept, 

And  climbed  the  height  while  others  slept. 
Golden  their  hair  on  head  and  chin : 

Gold  collars  deck  their  milk-white  skin : 


Short  cloaks  with  colours  checked 
Shine  on  their  backs :  two  spears  each  wields 
Of  Alpine  make :  and  oblong  shields 


Their  brawny  limbs  protect.” 


In  the  succeeding  compartments  are  wrought  the 
procession  of  the  Salii  with  the  sacred  shields,  and  the 
•regions  of  the  world  below,  where  Catiline  lies  in  tor¬ 
ment,  while  Cato  has  his  portion  with  the  just.  And 
within  the  whole,  round  the  umbo  or  boss  of  the 
shield,  there  runs  a  sea  of  molten  gold  in  which  sport 
silver  dolphins,  framing  the  centre  design — the  glories 


Augustus': — 


“  There  in  the  midmost  meet  the  sight 
The  embattled  fleets,  the  Actian  fight: 
Leucate  flames  with  warlike  show, 
And  golden-red  the  billows  glow. 


152 


THE  jENEID. 


Here  Caesar,  leading  from  their  homo 
The  fathers,  people,  gods  of  Rome, 

Stands  on  the  lofty  stern : 

The  constellation  of  his  sire 
Beams  o’er  his  head,  and  tongues  of  fire 
About  his  temples  burn, 

With  favouring  Gods  and  winds  to  speed 
Agrippa  forms  his  line : 

The  golden  beaks,  war’s  proudest  meed, 

High  on  his  forehead  shine. 

There,  with  barbaric  troops  increased, 

Antonins,  from  the  vanquished  East, 

And  distant  Red-sea  side, 

To  battle  drags  the  Bactrian  bands 
And  Egypt ;  and  behind  him  stands 
(Foul  shame !)  the  Egyptian  bride.” 

There  the  gods  of  Rome — conspicuous  amongst  whom 
is  the  archer  Apollo,  the  tutelary  deity  of  the  house  of 
Caesar — put  to  flight  the  dog-headed  Anubis,  and  the 
other  monstrous  gods  of  Egypt.  There,  too,  is  bla¬ 
zoned  the  “  triple  triumph  ”  of  Augustus,  graced  by  a 
long  procession  of  captives  of  all  tribes,  from  Scythia 
to  the  Euphrates. 

“  Such  legends  traced  on  Vulcan’s  shield 
The  wondering  chief  surveys : 

On  truth  in  symbol  half  revealed 
He  feeds  his  hungry  gaze, 

And  high  upon  his  shoulders  rears 
The  fame  and  fates  of  unborn  years.” 


CHAPTER  X. 


TURN'D S  ATTACKS  THE  TROJAN  ENCAMPMENT. 


/Eneas  had  been  right  in  his  forebodings  of  danger. 
'  Turnus  has  heard  of  the  chief’s  absence,  and  takes  ad- 
/  vantage  of  it  to  lead  his  force  at  once  against  the  new- 
built  fortification  in  which  the  rest  of  the  Trojans 
Tier  His  first  attempt  is  to  burn  their  galleys,  where 
they  lie  drawn  ashore  on  the  river-bank,  close  to  their 
lines.  But  the  ships  are  built  of  the  sacred  pines  of 
Ida,  the  special  favourites  of  the  great  goddess  Cybele; 
and  she  has  endued  them,  by  favour  of  Jupiter,  with 


the  power  of  transformation  into  sea-nymphs  when  their 
work  is  done.  Hp  sooner^do  the  torches  of  the  enemy 
touch  them  than  they  slide  off  into  the  water,  and  in 
their  new  shape  float  out  to  sea.  Even  this  portent 
does  not  scare  the  leader  of  the  Rutuli.  “  Lo  !  ”  he 
cries — “  Heaven  takes  from  our  enemies  even  their 
hopes  of  flight !  ”  He  does  but  draw  his  leaguer  all 
the  closer  round  the  Trojan  lines.  Throughout  the  night 
the  watch-fires  blaze  at  close  intervals,  and  captains 
of  the  guard,  each  with  a  hundred  men,  are  set  at 
their  several  posts  to  prevent  the  escape  of  the  prey 


154 


THE  JENE  ID. 


before  tlie  geneial  attack  which  is  ordered  for  the 
morning. 

But  the  Rutulian  chieftains  grow  weary  of  a  monot¬ 
onous  duty.  They  have  store  of  wine  in  their  camp, 
and  they  bring  it  out  to  cheer  their  night-watch.  The 
sounds  of  noisy  revelry  soon  rise  from  every  station, 
until,  as  the  revellers  are  gradually  overpowered  by 
sleep,  all  is  lulled  into  unusual  silence. 

Two  Trojan  sentinels  have  watched  anxiously  every 
sound  and  movement  in  the  enemy’s  lines.  They 
are  Hisus  and  his  young  friend  Euryalus, — late  among 
the  competitors  in  the  foot-race — inseparable  in  peace 
or  war.  bTisus  sees,  as  he  thinks,  an  opportunity  for 
stealing  through  the  Rutulian  guards,  and  bearing 
news  to  iEneas  at  Pallanteum  of  the  peril  in  which 
his  son  and  his  companions  lie.  He  is  a  keen  sports¬ 
man,  and  knows  the  forest  by-paths  well.  He  con¬ 
fides  his  design  to  Euryalus,  but  has  no  notion  of  taking 
the  youth  with  him  to  share  the  danger.  He,  on  the 
other  hand,  insists  upon  accompanying  his  friend. 
The  consent  of  lulus  and  his  elder  counsellors  is 
readily  obtained.  Let  them  but  bring  back  iEneas 
to  the  rescue,  and  no  rewards  and  honours  shall  be 
too  great  for  the  pair.  Turnus’s  horse  and  armour, 
Latinus’s  royal  demesne,  captives  of  price,  shall  be  the 
guerdon  of  Nisus  :  for  Euryalus,  —  the  prince  will 
adopt  him  henceforth  as  his  personal  esquire  and  com¬ 
panion  in  arms.  One  only  request  the  youth  has  to 
make.  He  has  an  aged  mother  in  the  camp — the 
only  one  of  the  elder  matrons  who  refused  to  be  left 
in  safety  with  Acestes  in  Sicily,  and  whom  no  dangers 


TURN  US  ATTACKS  TEE  ENCAMPMENT.  155 


could  separate  from  her  son.  Will  the  prince  promise 
her  solace  and  protection,  should  harm  befall  Euryalus 
on  the  way  1  The  answer  of  lulus  is  given  in  tears  ; 
he  has  no  mother  left,  and  the  mother  of  Euryalus 
shall  be  to  him  as  his  own.  He  girds  the  youth  with 
the  sword  from  his  own  side,  and  the  friends  set  out 
upon  their  perilous  errand,  escorted  to  the  gates  by 
the  Trojan  captains  with  prayers  and  blessings. 

The  enterprise  might  have  succeeded,  had  not  the 
two  friends  been  tempted,  by  the  helpless  state  in 
■which  they  found  the  Rutulian  camp,  to  slaughter 
their  sleeping  enemies  as  they  passed.  Rhamnes  and 
Remus — names  to  be  borne  hereafter  by  more  historic 
actors  in  the  history  of  Rome — with  a  crowd  of  vic¬ 
tims  of  lesser  note,  fall  by  the  swords  of  Nisus 
and  his  companion.  Euryalus  even  stops,  with  a 
young  man’s  vanity,  to  put  on  the  glittering  belt 
which  he  has  stripped  from  one  of  his  victims,  and  the 
helmet  of  the  sleeping  Messapus.  Thus  precious  time 
is  lost,  and  the  moonlight  streams  upon  them  as  they 
clear  the  Rutulian  hues,  and  take  the  path,  which 
Nisus  knows,  for  Pallanteum. 

A  detachment  of  the  enemy’s  cavalry  is  on  the 
march  to  join  Turnus.  The  glimmer  of  the  moon¬ 
light  on  Euryalus’s  helmet — his  new  prize — betrays 
the  friends  as  they  try  to  steal  by,  and  they  are 
challenged  at'  once  by  Yolscens,  the  commander. 
They  fly  to  the  neighbouring  wood;  but  the  horse¬ 
men  surround  it,  and  though  Hisus  escapes  them, 
it  is  only  to  find  that  his  friend  has  fallen  into  their 
hands.  He  rushes  back,  and  in  the  wild  hope  of 


156 


THE  jENEID. 


effecting  a  rescue,  hides  himself  in  the  thicket,  whence 
he  launches  two  spears  with  fatal  effect  upon  the  party 
who  are  dragging  along  their  prisoner.  Enraged  at 
the  sudden  attack,  and  seeing  no  enemy  in  the  dark¬ 
ness,  Yolscens  lays  hold  upon  Euryalus,  and  vows 
revenge.  Nisus  rushes  from  his  cover,  and  implores 
them  to  turn  their  swords  on  him,  and  to  spare  a 
youth  whose  only  crime  has  been  his  friendship. 

“  In  vain  he  spoke :  the  sword,  fierce  driven, 

That  alabaster  breast  had  riven. 

Down  falls  Euryalus,  and  lies 
In  death’s  enthralling  agonies : 

Blood  trickles  o’er  his  limbs  of  snow; 

His  head  sinks  gradually  low: 

Thus,  severed  by  the  ruthless  plough, 

Dim  fades  a  purple  flower: 

Their  weary  necks  so  poppies  how, 

O’erladen  by  the  shower. 

But  Nisus  on  the  midmost  flies, 

With  Yolscens,  Yolscens  in  his  eyes: 

In  clouds  the  warriors  round  him  rise, 

Thick  hailing  blow  on  blow: 

Yet  on  he  bears,  no  stint,  no  stay; 

Like  thunderbolt  his  falchion’s  sway: 

Till  as  for  aid  the  Rutule  shrieks 
Plunged  in  his  throat  the  weapon  reeks  • 

The  dying  hand  has  reft  away 
The  lifeblood  of  its  foe. 

Then,  pierced  to  death,  asleep  he  fell 
On  the  dead  breast  he  loved  so  well.” 

With  the  first  dawn  Turnus  leads  his  forces  to  the 
attack — the  heads  of  Nisus  and  Euryalus  borne  in 
front  upon  the  points  of  spears,  so  savage  is  the  Rutu- 


TURN  US  ATTACKS  THE  ENCAMPMENT,  la7 


lian  at  the  slaughter  made  by  them  amongst  his  sleep 
mg  comrades.  The  mother  of  Euryalus  has  heard  the 
news,  and  sees  the  ghastly  trophies  from  the  ramparts. 
lulus  performs  his  promise,  and  the  frantic  woman  is, 
under  his  personal  directions,  tenderly  removed.  He 
Jiimself  becomes  the  hero  of  the  day.  The  archer’s 
craft,  his  love  of  which  had  led  to  the  feud  with  the 
Latins,  is  turned  to  good  service  in  the  defence  of 
the  camp.  Numanus,  a  brother-in-law  of  Turnus,  is 
loudly  taunting  the  Trojans  in  front  of  their  lines  : — 

"  Twice  captured  Phrygians !  to  be  pent 
Once  more  in  leaguered  battlement, 

And  plant  unblushingly  between 
Yourselves  and  death  a  stony  screen! 

Lo,  these  the  men  that  draw  their  swords 
To  part  our  ladies  from  their  lords ! 

What  god,  what  madness  brings  you  here 
To  taste  of  our  Italian  cheer  l 
No  proud  Atridse  leads  our  vans: 

No  false  Utysses  talks  and  plans: 

E’en  from  the  birth  a  hardy  brood. 

We  take  our  infants  to  the  flood, 

And  fortify  their  tender  mould 
With  icy  wave  and  ruthless  cold. 

Early  and  late  our  sturdy  boys 

Seek  through  the  woods  a  hunter’s  joys: 

Their  pastime  is  to  tame  the  steed, 

To  bend  the  bow  and  launch  the  reed. 

Our  youth,  to  scanty  fare  inured, 

Made  strong  by  labour  oft  endured, 

Subdue  the  soil  with  spade  and  rake, 

Or  city  walls  with  battle  shake. 

Through  life  we  grasp  our  trusty  spear: 

It  strikes  the  foe,  it  goads  the  steer: 


158 


THE  jENEID. 


Age  cannot  chill  our  valour:  no, 

The  helmet  sits  on  locks  of  snow ; 

And  still  we  love  to  store  our  prey, 

And  eat  the  fruits  our  arms  purvey. 

You  flaunt  your  robes  in  all  men’s  eyes, 

Your  saffron  and  your  purple  dyes, 

Recline  on  downy  couch,  or  weave 
The  dreamy  dance  from  mom  to  eve : 

Sleeved  tunics  guard  your  tender  skins, 

And  ribboned  mitres  prop  your  chins. 

Phrygians! — nay  rather  Phrygian  fair! 

Hence,  to  your  Dindymus  repair! 

Go  where  the  flute’s  congenial  throat 
Shrieks  through  two  doors  its  slender  note. 
Where  pipe  and  cymbal  call  the  crewj 
These  are  the  instruments  for  you : 

Leave  men,  like  us,  in  arms  to  deal, 

Nor  bruise  your  lily  hands  with  steel.” 

lulus,  after  brief  prayer  to  Jupiter,  sends  an  arrow 
through  the  boaster’s  temples.  But  Apollo,  taking  the 
shape  of  the  boy’s  guardian,  Butes,  warns  him  to  be 
content  with  this  first  triumph  :  such  weapons,  says 
lie  of  the  silver  bow,  with  that  jealousy  of  mortals 
common  to  all  pagan  divinities,  are  not  for  boys. 

Attack  and  defence  are  maintained  vigorously  on 
either  side.  Turnus  is  everywhere,  dealing  death 
where  he  comes.  Mezentius,  the  infidel,  tries  to  fire 
the  palisade :  Messapus,  “  the  horse- tamer,”  calls  for 
ladders  to  scale  it.  A  detachment  of  Yolscians 
form  a  “  tortoise,”  by  linking  their  shields  like  a  pent¬ 
house  over  their  heads,  and  under  this  cover  try  to 
plant  their  ladders ;  but  the  Trojans  hoist  a  huge  rock 
aloft,  and  dash  it  down  with  murderous  effect  upon 


T  UR  XUS  ATTACKS  THE  ENCAMPMENT.  ioS 


the  roof  of  shields,  crusliing  the  hearers  underneath. 
A  tall  wooden  flanking-tower  is  set  on  fire  by  Turnus, 
and  falls  ever,  with  its  defenders,  among  the  enemy. 
Two  only  survive  the  fall,  one  of  whom — a  slave-born 
warrior,  who  bears  a  blank  shield — flings  himself  into 
the  Putulian  ranks,  and  dies  there  fighting  against 
overwhelming  numbers.  The  other,  Lycus,  a  swift 
and  active  runner,  reaches  the  rampart  of  the  intrench- 
ment,  and  nearly  succeeds  in  climbing  over  amongst 
his  friends,  when  Turnus  grasps  him  and  bears  him 
off,  in  spite  of  the  missiles  showered  down  by  his 
sympathising  comrades. 

Pandarus  and  Bitias,  two  brothers  of  gigantic  stature, 
have  charge  of  one  of  the  gateways  of  the  intrenched 
camp.  They  throw  the  double  gates  wide  open,  and 
take  their  stand,  one  on  either  side,  within.  Past  as 
the  more  venturous  spirits  among  the  enemy  rush 
through,  they  are  either  felled  by  the  giant  warders,  or, 
if  they  escape  these  first,  are  slain  inside  by  the  other 
Trojans,  who  even  carry  the  battle  outside  the  gates. 
Word  conies  to  Turnus  of  the  increasing  boldness  of 
the  enemy.  He  rushes  to  the  rescue,  slays  right  and 
left,  and  brings  Bitias  to  the  ground  by  hurling  at  him 
a  huge  falarica — a  spear  used  in  the  great  catapults 
which  formed  the  artillery  of  those  days.  His  brother 
Pandarus  by  main  strength  closes  the  great  gates, 
shutting  out  some  of  his  unfortunate  friends  as  well 
as  his  enemies,  and  shutting  in,  to  the  dismay  of  the 
Trojans,  their  terrible  enemy.  When  he  sees  Turnus, 
however,  he  rushes  upon  him  to  avenge  his  brother’s 
death ;  but  the  Rutulian  cleaves  him  with  his  keen 


160 


THE  JENE1D. 


falchion  down  to  the  chin.  Then  he  turns  on  tho 
dismayed  defenders,  and  smites  them  right  and  left. 
Had  he  hut  bethought  himself  then  to  open  the  gates 
once  more,  and  let  his  comrades  in,  so  cowed  were  the 
Trojans  at  the  moment  that  their  defeat  was  certain. 
But  all  his  heart  is  set  on  slaughter,  and  the  Trojans, 
rallied  by  Mnestheus  (the  hero  of  the  galley-race), 
soon  find  out  that  he  is  alone.  Nevertheless  he  fighta 
his  way  gallantly  towards  the  river. 

“  The  Trojans  follow,  shouting  loud, 

And  closer  still  and  closer  crowd. 

So  when  the  gathering  swains  assail 
A  lion  with  their  brazen  hail, 

He,  glaring  rage,  begins  to  quail, 

And  sullenly  departs : 

Tor  shame  his  back  he  will  not  turn, 

Yet  dares  not,  howsoe’er  he  yearn, 

To  charge  their  serried  darts 
So  Turnus  lingeringly  retires, 

And  gflows  with  ineffectual  fires. 

Twice  on  the  foe  e’en  then  he  falls, 

Twice  routs  and  drives  them  round  the  walla : 

But  from  the  camp  in  swarms  they  pour, 

Nor  Juno  dares  to  help  him  more. 

•  •  •  •  •  • 

At  length,  accoutred  as  he  stood, 

Headlong  he  plunged  into  the  flood. 

The  yellow  flood  the  charge  received, 

With  buoyant  tide  his  weight  upheaved, 

And  cleansing  off  the  encrusted  gore, 

Returned  him  to  his  friends  once  more.” 


CHAPTER  XL 


THE  DEATH  OF  PALLAS. 

The  scene  changes  to  Olympus,  where  Jupiter  holds  a 
council  of  the  gods.  He  is  as  much  troubled  as  in  the 
Iliad  with  the  dissensions  in  his  own  court,  and  holds 
the  balance  with  difficulty  between  his  queen  and  his 
daughter,  each  unscrupulous  in  their  partisanship. 
Venus  complains  to  him  bitterly  of  the  peril  in  which 
her  son  ^Eneas  stands,  by  reason  of  Juno’s  machina¬ 
tions.  That  goddess  replies,  with  considerable  show 
of  reason,  that  iEneas  has  brought  his  troubles  upon 
himself ;  that  Latinus  and  Turnus  and  Lavinia  were 
all  going  on  peacefully  before  he  came ;  and  that — 
if  the  whole  history  of  the  Trojans  must  needs  be 
discussed  again — Venus  herself,  by  her  instrument 
Helen,  was  the  mother  of  all  the  mischief.  The  king 
of  the  gods  somewhat  loses  patience,  and  swears  by 
the  great  river  of  Sty'S;,  with  the  awful  nod  which 
shakes  Olympus,  that  Trojan  and  Rutulian  shall  even 
fight  it  out,  and  the  Fates  shall  decide  the  question. 
So  he  dissolves  the  Olympian  convocation. 

The  fight  at  the  Trojan  encampment  is  renewed  ip 
a.  c.  voL  v.  li 


!G2 


THE  jENEID. 


the  morning  as  fiercely  as  ever.  But  succours  are  on 
their  way.  The  ships  of  the  Etruscan  leader  Tarchon 
• — the  name  which  future  kings  of  Borne  were  to 
bear  with  little  alteration — have  been  sailing  all  night 
down  the  Tyrrhenian  Sea,  under  their  new-found  chief 
/Eneas.  His  galley  leads  the  van ;  and  with  him  in 
the  stern — for  he  takes  the  helm  himself — sits  young 
Pallas,  hearing  him  tell  of  the  great  deeds  of  old.  The 
poet  gives  us  something  like  a  muster-roll  of  the 
Etruscan  chiefs  and  their  followings;  more  interesting 
perhaps  to  the  ear  of  a  Boman,  who  would  catch  up  here 
and  there  some  historical  allusion  to  a  place  or  family 
with  which  he  claimed  some  connection,  than  to  the 
modern  reader,  who  can  have  no  such  sympathies.  He 
gives  us,  too,  the  figure-heads  from  which  the  ships  of 
the  most  noted  captains  took  their  names  :  the  Tiger 
— a  favourite,  it  would  seem,  to  our  English  nautical 
taste  even  down  to  the  present  day — the  Centaur,  the 
Apollo,  the  Triton,  the  Mineius — the  last-named  from 
the  river  that  flowed  by  Yirgil’s  own  town  of  Mantua, — 

“  Fair  town !  her  sons  of  high  degree, 

Though  not  unmixed  their  blood ; 

Three  races  swell  the  mingled  stream  : 

Four  states  from  each  derive  their  birth  : 

Herself  among  them  sits  supreme, 

Her  Tuscan  blood  her  chiefest  worth.” 

m 

/Eneas  has  a  strange  rencontre  in  his  night-voyage. 
Suddenly  there  rises  round  his  galley  a  circle  of  water- 
nymphs — they  are  his  own  vessels,  thus  transformed, 
and  their  errand  is  to  warn  him  of  the  danger  in  which 


THE  DEATH  OF  PALLAS. 


1C3 


lulus  and  his  people  lie.  The  sight  which  meets  his 
eyes  as  he  enters  the  Tiber  at  daybreak  confirms  their 
tidings :  he  sees  the  camp  surrounded  by  enemies.^ 
Standing  high  upon  his  deck,  he  raises  aloft  the 
wondrous  shield.  The  Trojans  recognise  in  the  signal 
the  arrival  of  the  help  they  so  sorely  need,  and  welcome 
it  with  prolonged  shouts.  Then  their  enemies  note  it 
also, — and  the  fight  grows  fiercer  still.  Tarchon — 
who  seems  to  act  as  captain  of  the  fleet  under  iEneas 
as  admiral — looks  out  a  good  place  to  beach  the  galleys, 
bids  the  men  give  way  with  a  will,  and  runs  them 
well  up,  the  forepart  high  and  dry — all,  except  the 
gallant  captain  himself,  whose  vessel  breaks  her  back 

!and  goes  to  pieces. 

Turnus  has  left  the  command  of  the  storming-party 
to  his  lieutenants,  and  gone  down  himself  with  a 
picked  force  to  oppose  iEneas’s  landing.  The  Arcadian 
contingent,  unused  to  fighting  on  foot  and  half  in  the 
water,  get  into  confusion,  and  turn.  Young  Pallas 
gallantly  rallies  them,  for  the  honour  of  his  country¬ 
men.  He  himself  wins  his  spurs,  in  this  his  first  field, 
by  deeds  which  would  become  iEneas  himself.  One 
brief  episode  in  his  exploits  is  pathetic  enough.  There 
are  fighting  on  the  Itutulian  side  the  twin-brothers 
Thymber  and  Larides 


“  So  like,  the  sweet  confusion  e’en 
Their  parents’  eyes  betrayed ; 

But  Pallas  twin  and  twin  between 
Has  cruel  difference  made ; 

For  Thymber’s  head  the  steel  has  shorn  ; 
Larides’  severed  hand  forlorn 
Feels  blindly  for  its  lord ; 


164 


THE  JEN E ID. 


The  quivering  fingers,  half  alive, 

Twitch  with  convulsive  gripe,  and  strive 
To  close  upon  the  sword.” 

Young  Lausus,  the  son  of  the  tyrant  Mezentius,  is 
leading  his  men  against  Pallas,  when  a  greater  soldier 
interposes  between  the  twro  young  heroes.  Turnus 
comes,  and  Pallas  meets  him  eagerly — yet  not  with¬ 
out  full  consciousness  of  the  inequality  of  the  combat. 
He  hurls  his  spear,  so  strongly  and  truly  that  it  pene¬ 
trates  through  Turnus’s  shield,  and  slightly  grazes  his 
body.  Then  Turnus  launches  his  weapon  in  return, 
and  it  goes  right  through  the  metal  plates  and  tough 
ox-hide  of  the  shield,  and  through  the  corselet  of  Pallas, 
deep  into  his  breast,  and  the  young  prince  falls  to  the 
ground  writhing  in  his  dying  agony.  Turnus  stands 
astride  of  the  corpse,  and  shouts  triumphantly  to  the 
discomfited  Arcadians.  Yet  there  is  something  gener¬ 
ous,  according  to  the  fierce  code  of  the  times,  in  his 
treatment  of  his  dead  enemy ;  he  neither  strips  the 
armour,  nor  makes  any  attempt  to  prevent  the  Arca¬ 
dians  from  carrying  off  the  body.  He  bids  them  hear 
it  home  to  King  Evander  for  burial ;  only  with  a  warn¬ 
ing  as  to  what  fate  awaits  the  allies  of  the  foreigner : — . 

“  Who  to  .Eneas  plays  the  host, 

Must  square  the  glory  with  the  cost.” 

One  trophy  he  takes  from  the  person  of  the  dead 
prince — a  belt  richly  embroidered  in  gold  with  the 
tale  of  the  daughters  of  Danaus.  He  girds  it  on  over 
his  armour,  unconscious  of  the  influence  it  will  have 
upon  his  own  fate. 


THE  DEATH  OF  PALLAS. 


1G3 


iEneas,  in  a  different  quarter  of  the  field,  hears  of 
the  death  of  his  young  esquire,  and  furiously  hews  his 
way  towards  Turnus.  All  who  cross  his  path,  veteran 
chiefs  and  young  aspirants  to  glory,  alike  go  down  be¬ 
fore  him,  and  no  appeal  for  mercy  checks  his  hand. 
Eight  prisoners  he  takes  alive ;  but  only  with  the 
intent  to  slay  them  as  victims  at  the  funeral  pile  of 
Pallas.  But  the  rival  champions  do  not  meet  as  yet. 
Juno,  fearing,  the  issue  of  an  encounter  with  iEneas  in 
his  present  mood,  cheats  the  eyes  of  Turnus  with  a 
phantom  in  his  enemy’s  shape.  When  Turnus  meets 
it  in  the  fight,  the  shape  turns  and  flies  towards  the 
ships,  pursued  by  him  with  bitter  taunts  on  Trojan 
cowardice.  One  galley  has  her  gangway  down,  and 
the  false  /Eneas  takes  refuge  on_board.  Turnus  follows; 
when  the  moorings  are"  loosed  by  an  invisible  hand, 
the  galley  floats  down  stream,  and  the  Butulian,  rav¬ 
ing  and  half  determined  to  end  his  disgrace  by  suicide 
when  he  finds  out  how  he  has  been  cheated,  is  swept 
along  the  coast  to  his  own  town  of  Ardea. 

Mezentius  takes  his  place,  and  seconded  by  his  son 
Lausus,  spreads  slaughter  amongst  the  Trojan  ranks. 
But  a  spear  cast  by  the  strong  hand  of  iEneas  lodges 
in  the  groin  of  the  father,  and  the  son  gallantly  rushes 
forward  to  cover  his  retreat.  iEneas  warns  the  youth 
to  stand  back — some  thought,  it  may  be,  of  Pallas 
makes  him:  unwilling  to  take  the  younger  life ;  but 
Lausus  dares  his  fate,  and  the  Trojan  falchion,  driven 
home  through  his  light  shield  and  broidered  vest — 

“  The  vest  his  mother  wove  with  gold  ” — 


TGG 


THE  jENEID. 


reaches  the  young  chiefs  heart.  iEneas  can  he  gener¬ 
ous  too.  He  will  not  strip  the  body ;  nay,  he  chides 
the  cowardice  of  Lausus’s  comrades,  who  hesitate  to 
lift  the  dying  youth,  and  himself  raises  him  carefully 
from  the  ground,  and  gives  him  what  comfort  may  be 
gathered  from  the  fact  that  he  has  met  his  death  “  at 
^Eneas’s  hand.” 

Mezentius  hears  of  the  death  of  his  son  as  he  lies 
by  the  river-bank  bathing  his  wound.  With  a  cry  of 
agony  the  father  bewails  his  own  crimes,  which  had 
thus  brought  death  upon  his  innocent  son.  Crippled 
as  he  is,  he  calls  for  his  good  horse  Khaebus,  who  has 
ever  hitherto  btfrne  him  home  victor  from  the  battle. 
To-day  they  two  will  carry  home  the  head  of  Hmeas,  or 
fall  together.  He  charges  desperately  upon  the  Trojan, 
who  is  right  glad  to  meet  him.  Thrice  he  wheels  his 
horse  round  his  wary  enemy,  hurling  javelin  after 
javelin,  which  the  Vulcanian  shield  receives  on  its 
broad  circumference,  and  retains  until  it  looks,  in  the 
j)oet’s  language,  like  a  grove  of  steel.  At  last  HCneas 
launches  a  spear  which  strikes  Mezentius’s  horse  full  in 
the  forehead,  and  poor  Rhmbus  rears,  and  rolling  over 
in  his  dying  agonies,  pins  his  master  to  the  ground. 
Hmeas  rushes  in  upon  the  fallen  champion,  who,  dis¬ 
daining  to  ask  quarter,  bares  his  throat  to  the  sword, 
and  dies  as  fearlessly  as  he  has  lived. 


GHAPTEE  XII. 


THE  DEATH  OF  CAMILLA. 

JEneas’s  first  care,  after  raising  a  trophy  crowned  with 
the  arms  of  the  slain  Mezentius,  is  to  send  home  to 
Evander  the-  body  of  his  son.  A  picked  detachment 
escort  it  to  Laurentum  with  all  honour,  wrapped  in 
robes  of  gold  —  embroidered  robes,  wrought  by  the 
hands  of  the  unfortunate  Dido.  The  youth’s  charger, 
iEthon,  is  led  behind  the  bier,  and  his  lance  and  helm 
are  also  borne  in  the  procession ;  a  custom  which  we 
have  borrowed  from  the  Bomans,  and  retain  to  this 
day  in  our  military  funerals.  iEthon  weeps  copious 
tears  for  his  dead  master ;  an  incident  not  so  entirely 
due  to  a  poet’s  imagination  as  it  may  seem,  since  the 
historian  Suetonius  tells  us  that  some  favourite  horses 
of  Julius  Caesar  showed  the  same  tokens  of  grief,  and 
refused  their  food,  just  before  his  death.  Another 
feature  in  the  obsequies  of  Pallas  is  happily  obsolete ; 
the  prisoners  whom  iEneas  had  taken  alive  with  this 
express  object  follow  behind  the  corpse,  to  be  sacrificed 
at  the  funeral  pile.  There  was  nothing  horrible  to  the 
polished  courtiers  of  Augustus  in  such  a  thought.  Even 


108 


THE  jENEIB. 


in  that  age  of  refinement  and  civilisation,  the  en  peroi 
himself,  after  the  defeat  of  Antony’s  party  at  Pernsia, 
was  said  to  have  slaughtered  three  hundred  prisoners 
in  honour  of  the  great  Julius,  to  whom  altars  were 
raised  as  a  demi-god.  True,  the  story  was  probably 
an  invention  of  political  opponents;  but  the  mere  fact 
that  such  a  story  could  be  invented  and  believed, 
marks  strongly  the  cruel  temper  of  the  age.  The  old 
king  receives  back,  in  bitter  grief,  all  that  remains  to 
him  of  the  gallant  son  whom  he  had  so  lately  sent 
forth  to  his  first  fatal  field  :  and  he  charges  iEneas, 
by  the  mouth  of  the  envoys,  to  avenge  him  on  his 
son’s  murderer — for  this  he  only  waits  to  close  his  own 
eyes. 

A  truce  of  twelve  days  is  agreed  upon  between  the 
armies  for  the  burial  of  their  dead.  The  Latins  have 
meanwhile  sent  an  embassy  to  ask  aid  from  Diomed, 
the  hero  of  the  Trojan  war,  who  has  come  home  and 
settled  in  Italy.  He  is  paying  the  penalty  of  having 
wounded  Yenus  in  the  battle  before  Troy,  and  is  not 
allowed  to  reach  his  native  Argolis.  He  warns  the 
ambassadors  that  it  is  not  good  to  war  against  the  race 
from  which  iEneas  comes — he,  for  his  part,  will  have 
no  more  of  it.  At  this  crisis  the  Latins  hold  a  council 
of  war.  Their  king  advises  a  compromise  with  the 
enemy — a  grant  of  land  on  which  to  settle,  or  a  new 
equipped  fleet  to  carry  the  fortunes  of  Troy  yet  further 
on.  Then  there  rises  in  the  council  one  Hrances,  a 
better  orator  than  warrior,  who  boldly  proposes  to 
give  the  princess  Lavinia  to  the  bridegroom  whom  the 
gods  have  sent.  Or,  let  Turnus  meet  iEneas  in  single 


TEE  BE  ATE  OF  CAMILLA. 


1C9 


combat — why  are  the  rest  to  suffer  for  his  pride  ]  Is 
all  Latium  to  he  steeped  in  blood  that  Turnus  may 
have  a  princess  to  wife  1  Turnus  is  not  slow  to  reply. 
He  will  go  forth  to  meet  the  Trojan  willingly — will 
Drances  follow  him! 

Even  while  they  thus  debate,  iEneas  has  left  his 
intrenchments  by  the  Tiber,  and  is  marching  on  the 
city.  The  queen  with  her  daughter  and  the  terrified 
women  betake  themselves  to  the  temples,  while  Turnus 
sets  himself  to  marshal  his  allies  for  the  defence. 
While  some  are  left  to  guard  the  walls,  the  whole 
force  of  cavalry  ride  out  to  meet  the  enemy.  His  best 
lieutenant  for  this  service  is  the  huntress  Camilla. 
She  leads  her  light  Volscian  horse,  supported  by  Mes- 
sapus  Avith  his  heavier  Latins,  to  meet  the  cavalry 
of  ./Eneas,  while  Turnus  with  his  squadron  lays  an 
ambuscade  for  him  in  a  wooded  valley.  Camilla, 
with  her  fair  staff  of  followers,  Tulla  and  Tarpeia — 
names  of  ominous  sound  to  Roman  ears — deals  slaugh¬ 
ter  in  the  enemy’s  ranks  in  no  feminine  fashion. 

“  A  Phrygian  mother  mourned  her  son 
For  every  dart  that  tlew.” 

Rut,  fierce  Amazon  as  she  is,  she  is  tempted  by  a 
woman’s  love  of  ornament.  There  is  a  Trojan,  one 
Chlorus,  priest  as  well  as  man-at-arms,  conspicuous  for 
the  brilliant  accoutrements  of  his  charger  and  himself 
His  horse  is  covered  with  chain-armour  clasped  with 
gold ;  and  purple  and  saffron,  and  gold  embroidery — - 
the  full  splendours  of  Asiatic  costume  which  he  affects 
—mark  him  out  as  a  tempting  prey.  It  might  havo 


170 


THE  JENEID. 


been,  the  poet  suggests,  a  desire  to  deck  some  of  her 
national  temples  with  such  distinguished  spoils, — or 
it  might  have  been,  he  admits,  only  a  woman’s  fancy 
to  wear  them  herself, — but  she  singles  him  out  and 
chases  him  over  the  field,  regardless  of  her  own  safety. 
Arruns  the  Tuscan  has  long  sought  his  opportunity, 
and  his  spear  reaches  Camilla  as  she  gallops  in  head¬ 
long  pursuit  of  her  gay  enemy. 

“  In  vain  she  strives  with  dying  hands 
To  wrench  away  the  blade  : 

Fixed  in  her  ribs  the  weapon  stands, 

Closed  by  the  wound  it  made. 

Bloodless  and  faint,  she  gasps  for  breath ; 

Her  heavy  eyes  sink  down  in  death  ; 

Her  cheek’s  bright  colours  fade.” 

So  dies  Camilla  ;  and  the  Yolscian  horse  are  so  dis 
heartened  by  her  loss  that  they  turn  and  fly  to  the  city, 
so  closely  pursued  by  the  Trojans  that  the  gates  have 
to  be  hastily  closed,  shutting  out  in  many  cases 
friends  as  well  as  foes.  Turnus  leaves  the  cover  of 
the  wood  to  attack  iEneas,  but  night  falls  on  the 
plain  before  their  forces  meet. 


CHAPTER  Xm. 


THE  LAST  COMBAT. 

The  spirit  of  the  Latins  is  wellnigh  broken — they 
feel  that  their  cause  is  a  failing  one.  And  Turnus  sees 
angry  eyes  bent  upon  him,  as  the  cause  of  this  ill-fated 
war.  He  will  take  all  hazards,  then,  upon  himself: 
there  shall  he  no  more  blood  shed  of  Latin  or  Rutulian 
- — unless  it  he  his  own.  He  declares  his  intention  to 
Latinus — he  will  meet  iEneas  in  single  combat.  The 
old  king  is  reluctant  to  allow  it :  Queen  Amata,  with 
tears  and  prayers,  begs  him  to  forego  his  resolution. 
Lavinia  herself — such  is  the  entire  reticence  of  the 
maiden  nature  in  epic  story — speaks  no  word  through¬ 
out  the  whole.  But,  as  modern  critics  have  long  dis¬ 
covered,  there  is  no  question  hut  that  she  has  a  senti¬ 
ment  for  Turnus.  She  hardly  could  have  a  thought  of 
^Eneas,  whom  she  had  never  seen.  When  she  hears 
her  mother’s  •  appeal  to  the  Rutulian  prince,  she  does 
almost  more  than  speak — she  blushes,  through  her 
tears. 

“  Deep  crimson  glows  the  sudden  flame, 

And  dyes  her  tingling  cheek  with  shame. 


172 


THE  JZNEID. 


So  blushes  ivory’s  Indian  grain, 
When  sullied  with  vermilion  stain : 
So  lilies  set  in  roseate  bed 
Enkindle  with  contagious  red.” 


These  last  four  lines,  in  Mr  Conington’s  version,  read 
like  a  bit  of  Waller  or  Lovelace — and  yet  they  are  a 
fairly  close  translation  of  the  original. 

The  challenge  is  sent  to  iEneas,  and  by  him  joyfully 
accepted.  There  shall  be  solemn  truce  between  Tro¬ 
jan  and  Rutulian,  while  the  rival  champions  do  battle 
for  the  princess  and  the  kingdom.  Turnus,  too,  has 
one  weapon  of  Vulcan’s  forging — his  father’s  sword. 
But  now,  in  his  haste  for  the  combat,  he  snatches  up 
and  girds  on  a  blade  of  less  divine  temper.  The  lists 
are  set  between  the  two  lines,  and  the  oaths  duly 
sworn.  iEneas  calls  the  gods  to  witness,  that  if  the 
victory  falls  to  Turnus,  the  Trojans  on  their  part  shall 
retire  at  once  to  Evander’s  colony,  and  make  war  no 
more  on  Latin m.  Or  even  if  he  himself  be  the  con¬ 
queror,  he  will  not  treat  the  Latins  as  a  conquered 
race  : — 


V 


« 


I  will  not  force  Italia’s  land 
To  Teucrian  rule  to  bow  ; 

I  seek  no  sceptre  for  my  hand, 

No  diadem  for  my  brow  : 

Let  race  and  race,  unquelled  and  free, 
Join  hands  in  deathless  amity.” 


/ 


But  at  once,  before,  the  rivals  meet,  by  the  instiga¬ 
tion  of  Juno  the  truce  is  broken  on  the  part  of  the 
Rutulians.  They  have  a  strong  fear  that  their  own 
champion,  young  and  gallant  as  he  is,  is  no  equal 


THE  LAST  COMBAT. 


173 


match  in  arms  for  the  great  iEneas :  he  is  hut  moving 
to  his  death.  So  speaks  the  seer  Tolumnius,  and  points 
to  an  omen  on  the  river  -  hank  :  an  eagle  swooping 
down  upon  a  flock  of  swans,  and  hearing  one  off  in  his 
talons,  hut  put  to  flight  when  they  turn  in  a  hody  and 
pursue  him.  JEneas  is  the  hird  of  prey — they  are  the 
un warlike  swans ;  let  them  hut  turn  on  him,  and  he 
too  will  fly.  The  seer  is  not  content  with  the  mere 
exposition  of  auguries ;  at  once  he  hurls  his  own  jave¬ 
lin  into  the  Trojan  ranks,  and  brings  down  his  man. 
The  fight  speedily  becomes  general.  Ahieas,  unarmed 
and  bareheaded,  rushes  between  the  ranks,  and  is 
wounded  by  an  arrow  while  he  calls  loudly  on  his  own 
men  to  keep  the  truce.  None  knew,  or  cared  to  know^ 
from  whose  hand  the  arrow  came  :  for  no  man,  says 
the  poet,  was  ever  heard  to  boast  of  such  a  coward’s 
shot. 

Then,  while  iEneas  is  led  to  the  camp,  faint  and 
bleeding,  by  his  son  lulus  and  his  faithful  Achates, — 
while  the  aged  leech,  lapis,  vainly  tries  all  his  skill 
upon  the  wound — for  the  barb  will  not  quit  the  flesh, 
■ — Turnus  spreads  slaughter  among  the  Trojan  ranks. 
But  only  for  a  while.  Venus  drops  a  healing  balsam 
into  the  water  with  winch  her  son’s  wound  is  being 
bathed ;  at  once  the  arrow-head  drops  out,  and  the 
hero  stands  up  sound  and  whole.  Again  he  dons  the 
Vulcanian  armour,  and  re-enters  the  battle.  The 
Butulians  give  way  before  him,  but  he  scorns  to  smite 
the  fugitives,  and  seeks  out  only  Turnus.  And  Tur¬ 
nus,  pale  and  unnerved — for  the  presage  of  his  fate 
lies  heavy  upon  his  soul — has  no  longer  any  mind  to 


174 


THE  JEN E ID. 


meet  him.  It  is  very  strange,  to  our  modern  notions 
of  heroism,  to  see  this  infirmity  of  resolution  in  a  tried 
soldier  and  captain  like  Turnus.  But  the  heroes  of 
these  elder  days  lose  heart  at  once  when  they  feel 
their  star  is  no  longer  in  the  ascendant.  Turnus,  like 
Hector  in  the  Iliad,  shrinks  from  the  fate  which  he 
foresees. 

Turnus  has  a  sister,  Juturna,  a  river-nymph  and 
demi-goddess,  a  favourite  of  Juno,  who  has  warned 
her  if  possible  to  save  her  brother.  She  now  takes 
the  place  of  his  charioteer,  and,  while  she  drives 
rapidly  over  the  field,  takes  care  to  keep  him  far  from 
iEneas,  who  is  calling  loudly  on  him  to  halt  and  keep 
his  compact  of  personal  duel.  At  last  the  Trojan 
leader,  baffled  in  this  object,  throws  all  his  forces 
suddenly  on  the  town,  which  lies  almost  at  his  mercy, 
stripped  of  its  defenders,  and  bids  his  captains  bring 
torches  and  scaling-ladders.  A  horseman,  sorely 
wounded  in  the  face,  brings  word  of  this  new  danger 
to  Turnus  as  he  is  wheeling  madly  over  the  battle¬ 
field,  and  implores  him  to  come  to  the  rescue.  Ho 
looks  round  towards  the  walls,  and  sees  the  flames 
already  mounting.  Then  he  rallies  once  more  the  old 
courage  which  had  so  strangely  failed  him.  He  sees 
his  fate  as  clearly  as  before,  but  he  will  meet  it.  He 
knows  his  sister  now,  too  late,  in  his  charioteer;  but 
he  will  fly  no  longer — “  Is  death  such  great  wretched¬ 
ness,  after  all  1  ”  He  leaps  from  his  chariot,  as  he 
knows,  to  meet  it,  lifts  his  hand,  and  shouts  to  his 
Rutulians  to  stay  their  hands,  and  the  ranks  ot 
both  armies  divide  before  him  as  he  makes  towards 


THE  LAST  COMBAT. 


175 


the  part  of  the  wall  where  iEneas  is  leading  the 
attack. 

“  But  great  iEneas,  when  he  hears 
The  challenge  of  his  foe, 

The  leaguer  of  the  town  forbears, 

Lets  town  and  rampart  go, 

Steps  high  with  exultation  proud, 

And  thunders  on  his  arms  aloud  ; 

Vast  as  majestic  Athos,  vast 
As  Eryx  the  divine, 

Or  he  that  roaring  with  the  blast 

Heaves  his  huge  bulk  in  snow-drifts  massed, 

The  father  Apennine.” 

Trojans,  Latins,  and  Eutulians  look  on  in  awe  and 
admiration  as  the  two  chiefs  advance  to  try  this  last 
ordeal  of  battle.  Each  hurl  their  spears — without 
effect;  then  Turnus  draws  his  sword,  and  they  fight 
on  hand  to  hand — 

“  Giving  and  taking  wounds  alike, 

With  furious  impact  home  they  strike  ; 

Shoulder  and  neck  are  bathed  in  gore : 

The  forest  depths  return  the  roar. 

So,  shield  on  shield,  together  dash 
iEneas  and  his  Daunian  foe  ; 

The  echo  of  that  deafening  crash 
Mounts  heavenward  from  below.’' 

But  the  faithless  sword  which  Turnus  had  so  carelessly 
girded  on  instead  of  his  father’s  good  weapon,  though 
it  has  done  him  fair  service  on  the  crowd  of  meaner 
enemies,  breaks  in  his  grasp  when  he  essaya  it  on  the 


176 


THE  JEN E ID 


armour  of  iEneas,  and  thus  helpless,  he  takes  to  flight, 
^neas  hotly  pursuing. 

“  Five  times  they  circle  round  the  place, 

Five  times  the  winding  course  retrace  ; 

N  o  trivial  game  is  here  :  the  strife 
Is  waged  for  Turnus’  own  dear  life.” 


A  dark-plumaged  bird  is  seen  to  hover  round  the 
devoted  head  of  the  Rutulian  chief,  half  blinding  him 
with  its  flapping  wings.  It  is  a  Fury  whom  the  king 
of  the  gods  has  sent  in  that  shape  to  harass  him. 
At  length,  in  his  flight,  he  finds  a  huge  stone,  which 
not  twelve  men  of  “  to-day's  degenerate  sons  ”  could 
lift. 

“  He  caught  it  up,  and  at  his  foe 
Discharged  it,  rising  to  the  throw, 

And  straining  as  he  runs. 

But  ’wildering  fears  his  mind  unman  ; 

Running,  he  knew  not  that  he  ran, 

Nor  throwing  that  he  threw  ; 

Heavily  move  his  sinking  knees  ; 

The  streams  of  life  wax  dull  and  freeze : 

The  stone,  as  through  the  void  it  past, 

Failed  of  the  measure  of  its  cast, 

Nor  held  its  purpose  true. 

E’en  as  in  dreams,  when  on  the  eyes 
The  drowsy  weight  of  slumber  lies, 

In  vain  to  ply  our  limbs  we  think, 

And  in  the  helpless  effort  sink  ; 

Tongue,  sinews,  all,  their  powers  bely, 

And  voice  and  speech  our  call  defy  : 

So,  labour  Turnus  as  he  will, 

The  Fury  mocks  the  endeavour  still. 


THE  LAST  COMBAT. 


177 


Dim  shapes  before  liis  senses  reel : 

On  host  and  town  lie  turns  his  sight : 

He  quails,  he  trembles  at  the  steel, 

Nor  knows  to  fly,  nor  knows  to  fight: 

Nor  to  his  pleading  eyes  appear 
The  car,  the  sister  charioteer. 

‘  The  deadly  dart  iEneas  shakes  : 

His  aim  with  stern  precision  takes, 

Then  hurls  with  all  his  frame  ; 

Less  loud  from  battering-engine  cast 
Roars  the  fierce  stone,  less  loud  the  blast 
Follows  the  lightning’s  flame. 

On  rushes  as  with  whirlwind  wings 
The  spear  that  dire  destruction  brings, 

Makes  passage  through  the  corselet’s  marge, 

A.nd  enters  the  seven-plated  targe 
Where  the  last  ring  runs  round. 

The  keen  point  pierces  through  the  thigh, 

Down  on  his  bent  knee  heavily 
Comes  Turnus  to  the  ground.” 

The  a:utulian  prince  confesses  his  defeat,  and  asks 
liis  lift  in  no  craven  spirit,  for  the  sake  of  his  aged 
father- -bidding  iEneas  think  of  old  Anchises.  The 
conqueior  lmll  relents,  when  his  eyes  fall  upon  some¬ 
thing  which  makes  that  appeal  worse  than  useless. 

“  Rolling  his  eyes,  iEneas  stood, 

And  checked  his  sword,  athirst  for  blood. 

Now  faltering  more  and  more  he  felt 
The  human  heart  within  him  melt, 

When  round  the  shoulder  wreathed  in  pride 
The  belt  of  Pallas  he  espied, 

And  sudden  flashed  upon  his  view 
Those  golden  studs  so  well  he  knew, 
a.  0.  vol.  v. 


M 


178  TEE  jENEID. 

Which  Turnus  in  his  hour  of  joy 
Stripped  from  the  newly-slaughtered  boy, 
And  on  his  bosom  bore,  to  show 
The  triumph  of  a  satiate  foe. 

Soon  as  his  eyes  at  one  fell  draught 
Kemembrance  and  revenge  had  quaffed. 

Live  fury  kindling  every  vein, 

He  cries  with  terrible  disdain : 

‘  What !  in  my  friend’s  dear  spoils  arrayed 
To  me  for  mercy  sue  ? 

*Tis  Pallas,  Pallas  guides  the  blade  ; 

From  your  cursed  blood  his  injured  shade 
Thus  takes  the  atonement  due.* 

Thus  as  he  spoke,  his  sword  he  drave 
With  fierce  and  fiery  blow 
Through  the  broad  breast  before  him  spread ; 
The  stalwart  limbs  grow  cold  and  dead ; 

One  groan  the  indignant  spirit  gave, 

Then  sought  the  shades  below.” 


So  closes  the  iEneid.  Does  any  reader  complain 

that  the  poet  has  not  carried  the  story  further  ?  With 

the  death  of  Turnus  the  catastrophe  is  complete.  The 

princess  of  Latium  is  the  prize  of  the  victor ;  and  the 

loves  of  dEneas  and  Lavinia  are  certainly  not  of  that 

«/ 

romantic  character  that  we  need  care  to  follow  them. 
The  Trojans  are  settled  in  Italy — two  races  under  one 
name.  For  so  has  Jupiter  promised,  as  some  indul¬ 
gence  to  the  feelings  of  his  queen,  that  the  old  Latin 
name  shall  at  least  not  be  merged  in  the  detested  name 
of  Trojan,  and  on  such  terms  has  the  goddess  reluc¬ 
tantly  acquiesced  in  the  settlement  of  the  wanderers 
on  Italian  ground.  Latins,  not  Troians,  are  to  ride 


THE  LAST  COMBAT. 


179 


tho  world.  Thus  lias  the  poet  combined  the  indigen¬ 
ous  glories  of  his  country  with  the  grand  descent  of 
its  rulers  from  the  old  mythical  heroes  of  Troy. 

Yet  there  is  a  singular  vein  of  melancholy  to  be 
traced  in  the  words  of  iEneas,  when  he  parts  with  his 
son  before  he  goes  to  his  last  victory.  They  are  per¬ 
haps  the  noblest  words  which  tho  poet  has  put  into 
his  mouth,  and  they  have  something  of  the  sadness 
which  more  or  less  affects  all  true  nobility  : — 

“  In  his  mailed  arms  his  child  he  pressed, 

Kissed  through  his  helm,  and  thus  addressed  : 

‘  Learn  of  your  father  to  be  great, 

Of  others  to  be  fortunate.’  ” 

The  old  tradition — well  known,  no  doubt,  to  Virgil's 
audience  and  first  readers — was  that  the  son,  not  the 
father,  lived  to  enjoy  the  sovereignty  of  Latium.  The 
hero  of  many  vicissitudes  was  not  held  to  have 
settled  down  into  the  peaceful  rest  which  he  looks 
forward  to,  throughout  the  poet’s  story,  as  the  end  of 
all  his  campaigns  and  wanderings.  The  Rutulians,  so 
said  the  legends,  would  not  yet  bow  to  the  foreign 
usurper ;  and  iEneas  fought  his  last  battle  with  them 
on  the  banks  of  the  river  Numicius,  and  then,  like  so 
many  of  the  favourite  heroes  of  a  people — -disappeared ; 
cither  carried,  living  or  dead,  by  some  divine  agency, 
to  heaven,  or  caught  away  in  the  arms  of  the  river- 
god. 


CHAPTER  XIY. 


CONCLUDING  REMARKS. 

The  iEneid  has  two  drawbacks  to  its  popularity  aa 
an  epic  poem  amongst  modern  readers.  One  defect 
is  common  to  all  classical  fiction — that  there  is  no 
love-romance,  properly  so  called,  on  the  part  either  of 
the  hero  or  of  any  other  male  character  in  the  poem. 
Love,  as  now  understood,  has  no  place  either  in  Virgil 
or  Homer.  We  find  in  their  verse  none  of  those 
finer  shades  of  feeling,  that  loyal  personal  allegiance, 
that  high  unselfish  devotion,  the  mysterious  sympathy, 
as  untranslatable  by  anything  but  itself  as  the  most 
perfect  wording  of  the  poet,  which,  nursed,  it  has 
been  said,  in  the  lap  of  Northern  chivalry,  but  surely 
of  much  older  birth,  has  given  now  for  centuries  to 
poet  and  to  novelist  their  highest  charm  and  inspira¬ 
tion.  Poets  had  to  sing  as  they  could  without  it  in 
Virgil’s  days.  Augustus  and  Octavia,  as  they  listened 
to  the  courtly  raconteur ,  would  have  opened  their  eyes 
wide  with  astonishment  if  he  had  sung  to  them  of  the 
devotion  of  Lancelot,  as  surely  as  they  would  have 
laughed  at  the  purity  of  Galahad.  They  understood 
what  love  was,  in  their  fashion ;  many  ladies  of  the 


Concluding  remarks. 


181 


court  sympathised  with  Dido,  no  douht.  They  under¬ 
stood  well  enough  “the  fury  of  a  woman  scorned.’* 
They  had  seen  a  whole  love-poem  in  real  life,  with 
the  appropriate  tragical  denouement ,  in  Antony  and 
Cleopatra.  That  was  their  notion  of  the  grand  pas¬ 
sion.  Probably  the  more  shrewd  among  them  looked 
upon  Antony  as  a  fool  to  prefer  “  love  ”  to  empire, 
and  applauded  Hlneas’s  “  piety  ”  in  obeying  the 
oracles  of  the  gods,  when  they  pointed  to  a  new  wife 
whose  dowry  was  a  kingdom.  There  was  quite  love 
enough  in  the  action  of  the  poem  to  suit  their  tastes, 
and  at  anything  better  or  purer  they  would  have  only 
shrugged  their  fair  patrician  shoulders. 

But  there  is  a  more  serious  defect  in  the  interest  of 
the  iEneid,  when  presented  to  English  readers.  It  is, 
that  iEneas  is  no  hero.  All  the  defences  and  apolo¬ 
gies  which  have  been  made  for  him  are  perfectly  just, 
and  perfectly  unnecessary.  He  was  a  hero  quite  good 
enough  for  the  court  of  Augustus,  and  so  far  quite 
suitable  for  Virgil’s  purpose.  Le  Bossu  was  perfectly 
right  when  he  contended  that  a  hero,  to  he  an  object 
of  legitimate  interest,  need  not  he  a  pattern  of  moral 
virtues.  He  might  have  gone  further,  and  said  that 
such  paragons,  who  are  plainly  superior  to  the  ordinary 
weaknesses  of  human  nature,  generally  make  very  dull 
heroes  indeed.  Undoubtedly  ./Eneas  is  a  dutiful  son, 
a  respectable  father,  and,  it  may  even  be  admitted,  in 
spite  of  the  unfortunate  way  in  which  he  lost  his  wife, 
an  exemplary  husband.  He  spread  his  palms  out  to 
heaven  in  the  most  orthodox  fashion  on  all  occasions, 
and  listened  obediently  to  the  message  which  the  gods 


182 


THE  jENEID. 


were  always  sending  him,  to  set  up  his  home  in  Latium 
at  all  costs.  All  these  estimable  qualities  are  enough 
to  furnish  forth  a  dozen  heroes.  He  is  also  ready  to 
fight  on  all  proper  occasions ;  and  as  to  the  charge 
that  he  is  equally  ready  to  weep  upon  all  occasions, 
which  has  been  brought  against  him  by  one  set  of 
critics,  and  excused  by  others,  both  might  have  spared 
their  pens ;  for  it  is  a  weakness  which  may  be  charged 
with  equal  truth  upon  most  of  the  heroes,  not  only  of 
classical  fiction,  but  of  classical  history.  It  is  not 
only  that  the  chiefs  of  the  Iliad  weep  without  fearing 
any  imputation  against  their  manliness,  but  if  we  are 
to  trust  the  unsensational  chronicles  of  Caesar,  the 
whole  rank  and  file  of  his  army,  even  the  veterans  of 
the  tenth  legion — the  “  fighting  division  ” — when  first 
they  heard  that  they  were  to  be  led  against  the  tall 
and  truculent-looking  Germans,  “  could  not  restrain 
their  tears,”  and  set  to  work  to  make  their  wills  forth¬ 
with.  The  thing  is  unaccountable,  except  from  some 
strange  difference  of  temperament ;  for  who  can  ima¬ 
gine  a  company  of  our  veriest  raw  ploughboy  recruits 
so  behoving  themselves  h  They  might  shake  in  their 
very  shoes  ;  they  might  even  very  probably  run  away : 
but  crying  and  howling  is  not  our  way  of  expressing 
emotion,  after  childhood  is  past.  But  we  are  accus¬ 
tomed  to  read  of  such  exhibitions  of  feeling  in  the 
natives  of  warmer  climates,  as,  for  instance,  in  the 
characters  of  Scripture  ;  and  an  occasional  burst  of 
tears  on  iEneas’s  part  would  not  have  unlieroed  him 
in  our  estimation  one  whit.  It  is  his  desertion  of 
l)ido  which  makes  an  irredeemable  poltroon  of  him  in 


CONCLUDING  REMARKS. 


183 


all  honest  English  eyes.  A  woman  and  a  queen  receives 
the  shipwrecked  wanderer  with  a  more  than  Oriental 
hospitality;  loves  him,  “not  wisely  but  too  well” — 
and  he  deserts  her.  And  then  Mercury  is  made  to 
remark,  as  a  reason  for  Aeneas  getting  away  as  quickly 
as  possible,  that  “varium  et  mutabile  semper  fcemina /” 
— that  the  poor  lady's  mood  was  changeable,  forsooth  ! 
The  desertion  is  in  obedience  to  the  will  of  the  gods, 
nc  doubt.  That  explanation  satisfied  the  critics  of 
Augustus’s  day,  and  he  was  to  them,  as  Yirgil  calls 
him,  the  “  pious  ”  Ahieas.  To  the  modern  reader, 
such  an  authorisation  only  makes  the  treachery  more 
disgusting.  The  morality  of  English  romance,  ancient 
or  modern,  is  by  no  means  immaculate.  Tristram  and 
Iseult,  still  more  Lancelot  and  Guinevere,  are  of  very 
frail  clay.  The  Sir  Galahads  ride  alone  ;  then,  now, 
and  always,  in  fiction  as  in  fact.  But  a  hero  who 
could  be  false  to  a  woman,  and  who  was  to  find  in 
that  falsehood  the  turning-point  to  fame  and  success, 
— he  might  befit  the  loose  tale  with  which  the  rybauder 
raised  a  laugh  round  the  camp-fire,  but  he  was  the 
subject  of  no  lay  to  which  noble  knight  or  dame  would 
listen.  The  passion  might  be  only  pars  amours ,  but 
it  must  be  loyal.  To  keep  such  faith,  once  pledged, 
the  hero  might  break  all  other  laws,  divine  or  human ; 
but  keep  it  he  must.  “  Loyaulte  passe  tout ,  et  fauls- 
sete  honnet  tout."  The  principle  is  by  no  means  the 
highest,  but  it  is  incomparably  higher  than  Virgil’s. 
And  this  makes  Lancelot,  in  spite  of  his  great  crime,  a 
hero  in  one  sense,  even  to  the  purest  mind,  while  the 
calculating  piety  of  /Eneas  is  revolting. 


184 


THE  uENEIV. 


The  apologetic  criticisms  of  some  translators,  whe 
have  felt  themselves  hound  not  only  to  give  a  faithful 
version  of  their  author,  hut  to  defend  his  conception 
of  a  hero,  are  highly  entertaining.  Dryden,  who  was 
said  hy  one  of  his  malicious  critics  to  have  written 
“  for  the  court  ladies,”  admits  candidly  that  he  knows 
they  “will  make  a  numerous  party  against  him,”  and 
that  he  “  cannot  much  hlame  them,  for,  to  say  the 
truth,  it  is  an  ill  precedent  for  their  gallants  to  follow;” 
winding  up  with  a  satirical  suggestion  that  they  would 
do  well  at  least  “  to  learn  experience  at  her  cost.” 
But  in  spite  of  this  special  pleading,  even  Dryden 
cannot  conceal  from  himself  that  his  hero  makes  hut  a 
very  poor  figure  in  this  part  of  the  story;  nor  can  he 
resist  the  humorous  remark  that  he  was  more  afraid  of 
Dido,  after  all,  than  of  Jupiter.  “  For  you  may  ob¬ 
serve,”  says  he,  “that  as  much  intent  as  he'was  upon 
his  voyage,  yet  he  still  delayed  it  uutil  the  messenger 
was  obliged  to  tell  him  plainly,  that  if  he  weighed  not 
anchor  in  the  night,  the  queen  would  be  with  him  in 
the  morning.”  Delille  says  that  Hineas  “  triumphed 
over  his  passions  in  order  to  obey  the  will  of  heaven  ;  ” 
and  forgets  to  add,  that  the  triumph  would  have  been 
more  complete  and  more  creditable  if  it  had  been 
achieved  somewhat  earlier  in  the  story.  He  notices 
the  unfortunate  fate  of  poor  Creusa, — left  to  follow  as 
she  might,  and  never  missed  till  the  more  fortunate 
survivors  met  at  the  rendezvous, — only  to  say  how 
necessary  it  was  for  the  purposes  of  the  story  to  dispose 
of  her  somehow,  if  there  was  a  new  wife  awaiting 
tineas  in  Italy ;  and  how  the  account  (his  own  ao 


CON  CL  UDTNG  REM  A  RKS. 


185 


count)  of  his  affectionate  search  for  her  (with  the  usual 
tears)  must  have  recommended  him  to  Dido,  and  ex¬ 
cused  that  poor  lady  for  falling  in  love  with  him 
instantly !  Rousseau  has  more  truth  in  his  epigram, 
— what  could  Dido  expect  better  from  a  man  who  left 
his  lawful  wife  to  be  burnt  in  Troy,  and  vowed  he 
never  missed  her  1  Segrais,  very  like  a  Frenchman  of 
the  days  of  Louis  XI Y.,  thinks  all  would  have  been 
right  if  ^Eneas  had  but  thrown  a  little  more  sentiment 
into  the  parting,  and  had  bestowed  upon  Dido  a  few 
of  those  tears  which  were  so  ready  upon  less  pathetic 
occasions.*  As  to  the  scene  in  the  Shades,  where  the 

*  Dido  has  always  been  a  favourite  heroine  with  Frenchmen, 
and  has  been  worked  up  into  three  or  four  tragedies.  One 
writer,  partly  adopting  M.  Segrais’s  notion  of  how  things 
ought  to  have  been — that  is  to  say,  how  a  Frenchman  would 
have  behaved  himself  when  such  a  parting  was  inevitable — has 
made  JEneas  take  at  least  a  civil  farewell  of  the  injured  queen : — 

“  Helas  !  si  de  mon  sort  j’avais  ici  mon  choix, 

Bornant  k  vous  aimer  le  bonheur  de  ma  vie, 

Je  tiendrais  de  vos  mains  un  sceptre,  une  patrie  : 

Les  dieux  m’ont  envie  le  seul  de  leurs  bienfaits, 

Qui  pourait  Sparer  tous  les  maux  qu’ils  m’ont  faits.” 

And  Dido,  mollified  by  this  declaration,  far  from  cursing  the 
fugitive  lover  in  her  last  moments,  assures  him  of  her  unchange¬ 
able  affection,  rather  apologising  for  having  so  inconveniently 
fallen  in  his  way,  and  delayed  him  so  improperly  from  Lavinia 
and  his  kingdom  : — 

“  Et  toi,  d’ont  j’ai  troublde  la  haute  destinde, 

Toi,  qui  ne  m’entends  plus — adieux,  mon  cher  A£n6o  ! 

Ne  crains  point  ma  colere— elle  expire  avec  moi, 

Et  mes  demiers  soupirs  sont  encore  pour  toi !  ”  + 


t  Le  Franc  de  Pompignau,  “  Didon.” 


186 


THE  jENEID. 


false  lover  begins  at  last  to  make  bis  tardy  excuses 
and  apologies,  the  French  critic  fairly  throws  up  his 
brief  for  the  defence,  and  contents  himself  with  the 
suggestion  that  this  was  one  of  those  passages  in  the 
poem  with  which  Virgil  himself  was  dissatisfied,  and 
which  he  must  certainly  have  intended  to  correct. 
But  iEneas  has,  in  fact,  little  personal  character  of  any 
kind.  He  is  only  what  Keble  calls  him,  “a  shadow 
with  a  mighty  name ;  ”  and  that  writer  even  goes  so 
far  as  to  suggest,  that  in  the  curse  imprecated  upon 
him  by  Dido,  and  her  treatment  of  him  in  the  Shades, 
we  may  see  an  intimation  that  the  poet  intended  the 
abasement  of  his  hero.* 

Turnus  will  always  find  more  favour  in  the  eyes  of 
modern  readers  than  his  rival.  Our  English  sym¬ 
pathies  do  not  run  at  all  with  the  foreign  adventurer 
who  comes  between  him  and  his  promised  bride,  and 
who  claims  both  the  lady  and  the  kingdom  by  virtue  of 
a  convenient  oracle.  Mr  Gladstone’s  may  perhaps  be 
only  an  ingenious  fancy,  that  Turnus  was  really  the 
favourite  with  the  poet  himself;  that  although  he 
made  HCneas  victorious,  as  was  required,  in  order  to 
carry  out  the  complimentary  reference  of  the  Roman 
origin  to  Troy,  still  the  young  chief  of  native  Italian 
blood,  maintaining  a  gallant  struggle  for  his  rights 
against  gods  and  men,  and  only  conquered  at  the  last 
by  supernatural  force  and  fraud,  was  purposely  held 
out  to  popular  admiration.  But  we  must,  at  least,  feel 
sympathy  with  him  as  utterly  over-weighted  in  the 
final  struggle  by  the  superior  strength  and  immortal 

*  Frselect.,  ii.  724. 


CONCLUDING  REMARKS. 


187 


arms  of  his  adversary,  and  the  flapping  of  the  Fury’s 
awful  wings 

To  trace  the  influence  of  the  iEneid  upon  modern 
poetry  would  require  a  separate  treatise.  Spenser  is 
full  of  Virgil.  Tasso’s  great  poem  is  in  many  passages 
the  iEneid  made  Christian,  with  its  heroes  trans¬ 
planted  from  the  days  of  Troy  to  those  of  the  Crusades. 
Dante  borrows  less  from  him,  though  with  an  intenser 
reverence  he  takes  him  for  his  “  master  ”  and  his  guide. 
In  his  mind,  indeed,  Virgil  seems  to  have  held  a  place 
midway,  as  it  were,  between  the  Pagan  and  the  Chris¬ 
tian  life.  If  Beatrice  represents,  as  has  been  said,  the 
heavenly  “  Wisdom,”  Virgil  is,  in  his  allegory,  the 
human  intellect  at  its  best  and  purest,  which  comes  as 
near  heaven  as  unassisted  humanity  may  ;  for  he  is 
the  guide  who  only  quits  the  Christian  poet  when  he 
is  close  to  the  gates  of  Paradise. 

The  “  Sortes  Virgilianae  ”  were  long  in  use,  often 
as  a  fashionable  pastime,  sometimes  in  graver  earn¬ 
est  :  the  inquirer  opened  the  volume  at  random, 
and  took  for  the  answer  of  fate  the  first  few  lines 
which  caught  his  eye.  In  the  times  of  the  later 
Boman  emperors,  they  ranked  among  the  most  pop¬ 
ular,  and  perhaps  the  least  objectionable,  of  the  many 
superstitious  practices  which  were  then  so  prevalent. 
The  Emperor  Severus  was  said  to  have  been  encour¬ 
aged  in  his  boyhood  by  the  very  words  which  had 
such  an  effect  on  Octavia — “  Thou  shalt  be  our  Mar- 
eellus  !  ”  And  when  subsequently  he  showed  a  taste 
rather  for  elegant  accomplishments  than  for  military 
renown,  again  the  “  Sortes.”  consulted  for  him  by  his 


188 


THE  JENEIB. 


father,  gave  the  well-known  lines  already  quoted,*  in 
which  the  glory  of  the  Koman  is  pronounced  to  he 
that  of  the  conqueror,  not  of  the  student  or  the  artist. 
The  superstition  held  its  ground,  through  the  middle 
ages,  down  to  times  very  near  our  own.  The  story  rests 
upon  no  mean  authority,  that  Charles  I.  once  tried  the 
oracle  with  a  startling  result.  He  was  in  the  Bodleian 
Library  while  the  Court  lay  in  Oxford,  and  was  there 
shown  a  splendid  edition  of  Yirgil.  Lord  Falkland 
suggested  to  him  sportively  that  he  should  try  the 
“  Sortes.”  The  lines  upon  which  the  king  opened  are 
said  to  have  been  these,  as  they  stand  in  Mr  Coning- 
ton’s  version  : — 

“  Scourged  by  a  savage  enemy, 

An  exile  from  his  son’s  embrace, 

So  let  him  sue  for  aid,  and  see 
His  people  slain  before  his  face  : 

Or  when  to  humbling  peace  at  length 
He  stoops,  be  his  or  life  or  land, 

But  let  him  fall  in  manhood’s  strength, 

And  welter  tombless  on  the  sand.” 

It  was  a  gloomy  oracle ;  and  Falkland,  anxious  to 
remove  the  impression,  tried  his  own  fortune.  He 
lighted  on  Evander’s  lament  over  his  son  Pallas  : — 

“  I  knew  the  young  blood’s  maddening  play, 

The  charm  of  battle’s  first  essay ; 

O  valour  blighted  in  the  flower! 

0  first  mad  drops  of  war’s  full  shower !  ” 

A  few  months  afterwards  Falkland  fell  at  the  battle 
of  Newbury,  barely  thirty-four  years  old. 

*  V.  124. 


CONCLUDING  REMARKS. 


189 


There  has  always  been  a  mystical  school  of  classical 
interpretation,  who  see  in  the  iEneid,  as  in  the  Iliad 
and  Odyssey,  a  tissue  of  allegory  from  first  to  last.  Not 
content  with  identifying  the  Trojan  chief  with  Augus¬ 
tus,  they  found  a  double  meaning  in  every  character 
and  every  legend  in  the  poem.  Bishop  Warburton, 
in  his  well-known  ‘Divine  Legation,’  expended  a 
great  amount  of  learning  and  research  to  prove  that  in 
the  Descent  to  the  Shades  in  the  sixth  book  we  have 
a  sketch,  scarcely  veiled,  of  the  great  Eleusinian 
mysteries.  Others  saw  in  Dido  the  love-passion  and 
the  fate  of  Cleopatra,  Antony  in  Turnus,  the  flight 
of  Marius  to  the  marshes  in  the  person  of  Sinon,  the 
miserable  end  of  Pompey  in  Priam — 

“  The  head  shorn  off,  the  trunk  without  a  name.” 

It  is  impossible  to  enjoy  either  Homer  or  Yirgil,  if 
their  text  is  to  be  “  improved”  at  every  step  after  this 
sort.  Augustus  and  Octavia  looked  to  the  poet  for  a 
tale  of  the  olden  time,  and  he  told  it  well.  No  doubt 
he  threw  in  graceful  compliments  to  Pome  and  its 
ruler ;  but  to  have  to  guess  at  some  hidden  meaning 
all  along  would  have  been  far  too  severe  a  tax  on  the 
imperial  audience,  and  would  certainly  not  heighten 
the  enjoyment  of  modern  readers. 

One  would  be  glad  to  know  what  was  the  view  that 
was  really  taken  by  that  profligate  court  on  the  one 
hand,  and  by  the  poet  himself  on  the  other,  of  the 
theological  machinery  of  the  poem;  those  powerful 
and  passionate  Genii  who  pull  the  wires  of  the  human 
puppets  to  gratify  their  own  preferences  and  hatreds, 


190 


THE  JENEIU. 


and  are  themselves  the  slaves  of  an  awful  Fate  which 
overrides  them  all.  Wherever  Justice  had  fled  from 
the  earth,  as  the  legend  ran,  in  those  pagan  days,  she 
had  not  found  refuge  in  heaven.  The  human  virtues 
which  Virgil  gives  his  heroes  were  no  copies  of  any¬ 
thing  celestial.  Such  lessons  as  the  “gods”  taught 
were  chiefly  perfidy  and  revenge.  For  men  of  intel¬ 
lect  and  of  a  pure  life — and  such  is  credibly  said  to 
have  been  Virgil’s — the  only  salvation  lay  in  utter 
unbelief  of  such  a  creed;  or,  at  most,  a  stoical  sub¬ 
mission  to  that  Unknown  Fate  which  ruled  all  things 
human  and  divine.  But  even  when  the  forms  and 
creeds  of  religion  had  become  a  mockery,  the  rule  of 
right,  however  warped,  was  recognised — in  fiction,  if 
not  in  fact :  and  Virgil,  though  for  some  reason  he 
declined  to  paint  the  true  hero  at  full  length,  has 
enabled  us  to  pick  out  his  component  parts  from  hia 
sketches  of  a  dozen  characters. 


END  OP  VIRGIL. 


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